Joseph Moldinado [01]
Joseph Moldinado had spray paint, and he still knew how to
spell a little bit. He wanted to write some words and was looking
for a place. He wandered by Central Park in his Spider to marvel
at what had been acomplished. It had been cordoned off now.
It was surrounded by guards now. All of the graffiti that had
gone up on it was painted over now. And guards would clearly
shoot to kill. But the thing of it was, sure, they could defend
Central Park from any more graffiti, but now renegade Graffiti
was going up all over New York City.
Most people didn't have access to spray paint. But they were
using their own feces, blood, food or whatever they could find
that would leave a mark. And most people did not know how to
read or write, but all of the corporate logos with a dagger
through them or corporate logos that were upside down, all of
the corporate logos with a stick figure doing a sexual act to it,
they were pretty easy to interperet. 1WG citizens walking around
Manhattan couldn't help but notice that there were people who did
not support the 1WG. And people who did not support the 1WG
were starting to notice that they were not alone.
Over on 51st st. he found a McRonalds and ducked down beside
it. He quickly scrawled "Fuk U Minton!" in tall black letters.
Not many would pass by it over here, and not many who did would
know how to read. That didn't matter. He had managed to leave
a message to the Relations class. An unambiguous message. He
had let them know that the uprising had begun.
Sarina McKinna [01]
"Brenna IT HURTS!"
"You're the only one it fits. So shut up and quit your bitchin."
"Yeah, well, why don't you put this ****in thing on and THEN you tell
me to quit my bitchin!"
"Well if I wasn't fat out to here, I would put the damn thing on.
And I wouldn't bitch about it. Really Sarina. Be a man about it
would you?"
"Got a penis I can borrow?"
"Lift your neck up love."
"****. I hate this part."
"We can leave the helmet off and you can just get your head blown
off then. Or you can fly fast enough that the wind sheer just peels
your face off. How would that do you love?"
"Is it too late to trade you in for a different sister?"
"Neck up love."
"I hate you."
"I love you too."
Randy Savoy (Samuel Sarndon) [03]
Samuel Sorndon or Randy Savoy or whatever his name was now
sat and reflected on how he had gotten here. It did not feel
right that he was not at UUtopius any more. He had been away
from it for months, but he still felt like he should go back
there. And the realization that the UUtopians were not there
any more was almost too heavy for him to deal with. The people
he loved were now scattered to the globe and he needed to keep
out of contact with them as much as possible for their own
safety.
But somewhere out there was Jenna. And he felt like he could
not live without her. Last night he had tried making love to
Ginni. And he thought about Jenna the whole time. He had
never, ever done that before. He felt so guilty about that.
The fact that Ginni's attraction to him seemed 100% physical
and 0% emotional helped him feel a bit better about it. But
still, that felt very wrong to make love to someone and think of
someone else. Maybe because their names were so similar, No.
No, it was just because he couldn't get Jenna out of his mind.
He loved her desperately and not knowing that she was alive and
safe was eating him away inside.
The new people that he found himself with were great people. They
were doing very important work. They were preparing to defend
Cambridge from an invasion by the government. There were about
a dozen people in his resistance cell. He liked them all very
much, but he had become somewhat close to four in particular.
Tom was the leader of the cell, and Tom was an absolutely
beautiful man. And Randy daydreamed about making love to him
every time he gave one of his powerful speaches. But Tom had
shown absolutely no signs of being open to the idea of bisexuality
and so Randy held his feelings in check as best he could.
There was Barth and Ginni. They were both very instrumental
to this opperation. Barth was a nerdish and slender fellow from
Madison, Wisonsin and had traveled all the way to Massachusetts in
a type of machine called a jeep. He had escaped a government
invasion that had destroyed Madison and he had come to seek out his
sister Ginni here in Massachusetts. Ginni was a laborer who worked
as a cleaner for McRonalds restaurants. Both of them were experts
on the devices that were called automobiles. There were tons and
tons and tons of them in the junk yards to the south of the city.
Barth and Ginni could put together these machines from the various
scraps of junk and use the used cooking grease from McRonalds to
fuel them. They had put together 5 of these automobiles and
they were hiding them here in their secret hideaway.
And finally there was Chantelle. She was the first person that
he met when he was looking for a resistance cell here in the Boston
area to join. He liked her because she reminded him of his little
sister Crystal. She was a few years older than his little sister
and hanging around with her made him feel like he was getting a
sneak preview of what his sister was going to be like. She was
the youngest member of their cell but she was very mature for her
age. She didn't like to be babied and she didn't like Randy acting
all 'big brotherly' toward her, but he couldn't help himself.
When Chantelle first brought Randy to meet the group, he could
tell that no one believed his story. It was like an insane fairy tale
and each of them politely rejected it and figured that he would tell
his real story in time. One day Barth was lamenting the fact that
they could not arm the automobiles with guns. Randy took out an
i2 device, created another identity for himself --he became Fred
Jablonski, an arms dealer that worked for the General Dynamics
small arms manufacturers (and then he had yet a third identity to
keep track of)-- and ordered all kinds of guns. Now all five autos
were decked out in rocket launchers and machine guns and had
hand-held weapons all over the insides, all loaded down with
ammunition.
After he successfully procured so many guns the group REALLY began
to doubt him. He seemed way too good to be true and he insisted that
his crazy story was real. They watched him very carefully for a long
while. But there is just something about Randy Savoy's personality
that makes you want to believe him. And now, most of the cell, sort of
half believed his crazy story and almost all of them would say they
trusted him. And they needed too. The invasion of Cambridge was
imminent and there was little room for distrust.
Jerod Branigan [06]
"Good morning Jerod. How did you sleep?"
"I slept fine. Thank you."
"This is a lovely country don't you think?"
"Yes. It's very pretty."
"And you enjoy your vila?"
"Yes. It's very nice. Look. Janice. There's something I'd like
to tell you. Er... Things I would like to talk to you about. I
don't know exactly how to say it. Even thought I've thought about
saying it about a thousand times in the last couple days."
"Jerod. Apparently, no one has explained to you yet. But I'm deaf.
And when you turn your head in that direction like that while your
speaking, I won't know what you're saying."
"Oh," was all Jerod could say. He was embarrassed way beyond what
was reasonable.
He turned to face her completely and began to speak far more slowly.
This really irritated Janice, so she took over the conversation to
try to explain things without having to explain explicitly, and in
order to save herself the frustration of trying to listen to him
when he was all agitated like this. She spoke in slow calming language
in an attempt to set him at ease.
"I was born in Baltimore," she began. "My father was a laborer.
When I was born my father wanted the family to 'do the right thing'
and have me put to death. There was no place for deaf children in
the United States at that time and most children born with a disability
were put to death. But my mother had spent three weeks with me before
they discovered I was deaf. She couldn't bear the thought of losing
me and so she ran away. She changed her identity. She allowed us
to become unemployeds just so that I wouldn't die."
"Growing up deaf was hard on me but not impossible. The children
of unemployeds never had to leave the house or interact with anyone.
Most children of unemployeds couldn't afford the new cost structure
of the schools at that time and so there was no fear that anyone would
discover that I was deaf, because there was nearly no one that I ever
interacted with. I say nearly no one because there was this strange
couple. And either the man or the woman of the couple would come to
our house every night and teach my mom and I to read."
"One day, very frantically, the Savoys --I'm pretty sure you met them
at UUtopius-- they came to our house and said that they were sending
Mr. Savoy and their son to a place called UUtopius. And they said that
UUtopius would be the perfect place for me and that they wouldn't care
that I was deaf and that they would teach me things that I could never
learn anywhere else. My mother only had twenty minutes to decide.
They weren't able to take her with us. It was an enormous risk just
offering to take me with them. It broke my mother's heart. But she
sent me with the Savoys to UUtopius."
"I spent the first six months at UUtopius completely withdrawn. All
I could think about was how I missed my mother. But then I made friends
at UUtopius. There was a girl there who couldn't talk because her
tongue was cut out. She taught me how to speak with my hands. Nearly
everyone at UUtopius knew how to speak with their hands. And that was
just the very beginning of what they were able to teach me. The Savoys
were so caring and kind to me. Randy Savoy is like a brother to me and
Ciff Savoy is the only father I've ever had as far as I'm concerned."
"When the UUtopians learned of the resistance that was going on here
in France they wanted to send someone to check it out. I begged them to
let it be me and they agreed and trained me for this mission to give
whatever assistance we could to France, and to some day bring whatever
could be found of value to UUtopius in France back home. I was very
much looking forward to going back home to UUtopius some day," she said
and then paused.
"I'm very sorry," Jerod said deflated. He could tell that she resented
the hand he had had in UUtopius breaking up and he seemed to be taking
her statement more gravely than she had intended.
"I know. From what I've heard from Sandra, you're very well
intentioned and well meaning. It makes me sad, but I understand.
I lived my young life in a VERY scary silent world. All of the people
I love at UUtopius are so special to me that I could never explain it
with words. The thought that I'll never see them all again in one place
breaks my heart in a way that you could probably never underst..."
"I'd understand much more than you might think," he interjected. "I
came from a place called Children of the Rose. They were everything
to me. Everything. As sad as it might make you, that they're disbursed
around the world, try to imagine what it would be like to have them all
dead. Every single person at UUtopius. Dead."
Jerod had managed to stop speaking slowly like she was stupid. She
took some time to consider what he'd said. Every UUtopian... dead.
Yeah. That would be much worse than just not knowing where everyone
was and whether or not they were safe. "So what was it that you
wanted to talk to me about?"
Jerod straightened up and stammered out a couple of very incoherent
sentences that were impossible for her to lip read. She put her finger
up to her lips. "Don't speak Jerod," she suggested. She turned her
back toward him and nestled into his chest very insistently until he
finally put his arms around her. It felt very good to hold her in
his arms like this, but if she was polyamorous like the other UUopians,
cuddling together like this might just as easily mean nothing at to
her. He wanted to use his words to clarify his felings. But
she wouldn't hear him if he did. So he just stood there, staring
out toward the French countryside thinking about how much he disliked
Danny Fire.
Dale Berger [02]
She looked enough like Hotcha. She sounded enough like Hotcha.
This should work. Dale Berger had been alive for more than eighty
years and the one thing that he knew he could count on was that
something was always going to surprize you. And he hoped it
wasn't going to be anything too big, because he was old and tired
and didn't have the energy for big surprises.
Dale could smell a war on the horizon. A bad one. Sharon
Shafer and Robert Minton each wanted each other dead. And they
were each willing to kill everyone on the planet to get to each
other. And there were going to be more than just two factions.
He could just tell. If this thing got ugly, and there was no
Arbitors department at DarqueOps to help settle things, then
every corporation that still held a grudge against another one
was going to jump into this thing and get the enemy before the
enemies had a chance to get them. The corporatocracy had become
dependant on DarqueOps Arbitors. Sharon Shafer was either
dangerously oblivious or hell bent on destruction. He was
scared because he couldn't rule out the later.
And in such a crazy war as this was sure to be, Sharon Shafer's
side was the only logical side to be on. And he had no choice.
Sharon Shafer probably knew that Dale was gay by now. She probably
knew everything about him by now. He needed to play ball by her
rules. If Minton knew that the CEO of a major corporation was gay
he'd undoubtedly have them killed. So Sharon's was definitely
the side to be on. But he wished there was a none of the above
option. Sharon was so ruthless and cunning that Dale was very
curious about whether Sharon had anything to do with Richard Walton's
death. Richard Walton had ben the old CEO of DarqueOps and an
acceptably good friend and most important of all he ran DarqueOps
for the good of the corporatocracy. Sharon seemed to care about
one thing and one thing only: herself.
He had assured her that he was going to take care of this
Hotcha situation. He'd found no way as yet to block the Hotcha
videomercials from coming in from outer space. But he was
preparing to fight fire with fire. The new Hotcha looked almost
exactly like the Hotcha that people were used to. She had the
long, frizzy blonde hair and the fancy clothes and she would now
have products in her hands telling people what to buy. There was
a team of engineers corrcting her voice and enhancing her look
so that the new Hotcha videomercials would be perfect right down
to the last detail. He sighed and tried to figre out why he
cared one way or the other about this. He was tired. He mostly
just cared about a nap.
Romero Ruiz [01]
Now there was a new Hotcha videomercial where Hotcha looked
more like the old Hotcha that people were used to. She wanted
him to go to Pizza Hut and McRonalds and Subway. She told him
what to buy. The magic was gone for him. He liked the Hotcha
with black hair better. Those commercials were few and far
between. And now there were videomercials for the blonde
Hotcha all the time. The old Hotcha videomercials and the
new ones were almost every other commercial now.
He didn't like it. Finally one of the new Hotcha videomercials
came on again. Hotcha told him that he was a good person and
that he should follow his passion and sing if he wanted to sing
or dance if he wanted to dance or paint if he wanted to paint.
She assured him that he could find a way. Mr. Ruiz wanted to
be a musician. He didn't have an instrument, but Hotcha said
that if he used his creativity he could find a way to do anything.
Then that blonde Hotcha came on and told him to buy Doritos.
That was enough. He couldn't take her anymore. He went and got a
chair from the kitchen table. And he began whacking a the
television to try to get it to shut up. It was made of plastiglass
so it was very sturdy but he was determined. He wacked and wacked
at it until there was a huge hole in the screen and then he started
smashing the tv's innards until it began to smoke and spark and
it finally went silent. Now all he could hear was the noise.
That noise that was always there. But that noise seemed almost
quiet now that he'd defeated the television.
He went out on his front porch and positioned his hands as
though he had a trumpet. He made sounds with his mouth like a
trumpet would make. A fine Jazz trumpet. He had fun with that
for hours until he was finally arrested.
Yadira Gomez [01]
Yadira couldn't believe that she had been at a party. For
her there had not been a party since she was a little girl.
Apparently the guy that hosted the party had been having parties
all along but he could only invite a few people to them for
fear of being caught. Now that the world was changing the guy
was inviting more people. And somehow she had gotten invited
and she loved it. She loved to dance. Dancing was such joy.
She had danced for hours. And then she had even had sex with
a man from the party. She had taken maybe a little too much of
that A15 at the party and it made her feel very social. And
Yadira went to church every Sunday but she didn't agree with
much of anything that the church had to say and so she was glad
to have gone against the church by going to that party. Now
the she felt a little more clear headed, she decided that she
would have sex with that man even without the A15 if there was
ever another opportunity.
But now the party was over. And she was stuck. The rain was
coming down and it was stinging her arms. She had been made to
feel so good at the party that she had misplaced her wrap and
left for home without it. It didn't seem important at the
time. But now the rains had come. And the rain hurt. It
was searing off her skin drop by drop. She looked around for
a doorframe or any shelter. Stores no longer had awnings
or anyplace for you to rest. You were supposed to go directly
into stores or to your Spider these days. Only Yadira had
no Spider and no stores were open at this time of night.
She was stuck out here and the rain was going to leave permanent
scars on her arms and chin. And it might kill her if it
started coming down any harder.
Jenna Sanchez [11]
"Jenna! Jenna! Oh my God! We are GOING TO FRANCE!"
"That's wonderful."
"Can you believe it? France! We'll be living there. I wanted
to come tell you myself. Thomas Wooten and Sandra and Jerod all
made it there safely. Won't it be so nice to see Thomas again?"
"Oh. I can't go with you Giselle. But I'm happy for you that
you're going."
"Why can't you go?"
"John Lamas has agreed to take me to Massachusetts to look
for Randy. I was going to find you and tell you all about it
this afternoon."
"Oh... Oh. Well that's great. I just know that God is going to
guide you back to Randy. Let's pray for each other right now."
"Giselle. I've never know how to tell you this since you've been
so excited about God lately, but --well, I'll just say it-- I don't
believe in God."
"What? You don't believe in God? Why not?"
"Um... I don't know why not. I just never have. I don't know how
to explain why I don't believe something. I just don't."
"Oh. Hmmmmm... Okay. I don't know what to say. Is it alright
if I still pray for you?"
"Of course! I'm really honored by how much you've prayed for me.
But as far as our goodbyes go, how about you just tell me that you
love me."
"Oh God Jenna. I love you so much! I don't know what I'd do
without you. As soon as you find Randy you have to bring him to
France. And we'll bring Danny and Astasha to France and we'll
have a love puddle that just never, ever ends."
"That sounds wonderful. I'll suggest it to him as soon as I
find him. I'm gonna miss you so much Giselle. You've totally
changed my life. If there is a God then I'm glad that us meeting
was a part of his plan."
Randy Savoy (Samuel Sarndon) [04]
Tom was lamenting the fact that they couldn't find an exact
start time for the invasion. Tom liked to talk out loud when he was
planning things. Tom really liked to work a problem from all
angles and seemed to delight in the challenges of solving a
tough problem. But Randy suspected that getting a start time
might not be so tough a problem as all that. So he plugged into
his i2 and started hacking around a bit and found plenty of information
warning Relations Class people from Cambridge to evacuate. So
apparently the start time was right now. The next day or two.
Randy relayed the information and Tom went into frantic mode
making final plans and getting the resistance cell mobilized.
Randy really liked to watch him work. Tom came up to him later
and put his hand on his shoulder to talk. "Samuel," he started.
"I never really trusted you at first. You seem to make everything
way too easy. But you're a really genuine person. And I appreciate
all the help. We're a hundred times more prepared than we would
have been without you. Okay, but so now I'm a bit worried about
you. What we've taught you about firing guns and warfare is all
well and good, but you're still going to have to do it in the field.
Ginni is going to be relying on you. She has to concentrate on
driving and she's going to need you to be a good gunner. You're
going to have to kill people Randy. There's no two ways about it.
You're going to have to leave all that UUtopius stuff you're always
talking about behind. The likelihood is that we're all going to
be dead in a few days. But the more of them that we take with us,
the more we're going to inspire a revolution. We're going to
show people that it can be done. Our sacrifice is not going to
be in vain. The world becomming a better place starts with us, here
and now."
Tom just stopped talking. He became absorbed in thought. Randy
wanted to reach out and kiss him. And then Tom turned and gave him
a strange look. Randy tried to erase the longing from his face.
Tom smiled at him uncomfortably and nodded and excused himself.
Crael Fetterling [01]
Five months ago Crael Fetterling had a very unlikely plan. She had
signed up for DarqueOps hoping to learn anything that might help her
rescue her uncle. She managed to get through the DarqueOps loyalty
testing somehow. Maybe because she wasn't really disloyal to the
corporatocracy, it just wasn't her top priority. She would help
DarqueOps in whatever they needed help with, but whenever she got a
chance to snoop around she would seek information on her uncle.
Back then the possibilities were very slim. She found the facility
that he was in and it was crawling with DarqueOps guards and security
systems. She kept a watchful eye on the facility, but any rescue attempt
would have been quite hopeless. There weren't many places to escape to.
She was thinking New Zealand perhaps, but getting him there would be
almost as impossible as breaking him out.
Then three months ago DarqueOps started changing. It changed a lot.
DarqueOps began to militarize. Lots of DarqueOps field agents were called
back to San Fransisco, lots of agents were being retrained as soldiers.
The facility where her uncle was kept reduced its DarqueOps compliment
by about half. And then by half again a short time later. And the
DarqueOps agents that monitored the security systems decreased at the
same rate. DarqueOps agents from all over the place were being reassigned
as soldiers. Most of her coworkers were mad, but Crael was quite happy.
It was like they were handing her an opportunity to liberate her uncle on
a silver platter.
One month ago, she was introduced to a man named Christian Scinta.
Christian Scinta was a high ranking emulator. Christian introduced her to
the DarqueOps monitor that was assigned to watch her, and then informed her
that the two of them had been watching her gather info on the facility and
had figured out who she was and had a good guess about what she was up
to. Christian was also an infiltrator. He had come from a secret society
called Children of the Rose. Children of the Rose had been destroyed and
Christian had been looking for what to do next. Christian told Crael all
about Boeing in Seattle and how there was an encouraging resistance mounting
there. It would be a lot easier to get her uncle to Seattle than it would
have been to get him to New Zealand.
And so now it was three against a few dozen rather than one against a
couple hundred. And with all of Christian's friend's knowledge of monitoring
opperations, all of Christian's knowledge about emulations and all of Crael's
gathered information, it was no big deal to craft a plan to just waltz in
the front door and present the front desk with official forms that said he
was being moved. It really wasn't that complicated. It took about two
hours total. The facility called DarqueOps for confirmation and Christian
emulated someone with the authority to give them confirmation and just like
that, Crael's Uncle, former president Bradford McNeeley, was thawing out in
the back of a cargoSpider on his way to Seattle.
Arina Rizzoti [01]
Arina had watched her entire department shrink down to just a handful of
people. Now it was going to be disolved completely. She and the other
three remaining DarqueOps Arbitors had just received the memo instructing
them to report for retraining. They wanted to retrain her as a soldier.
Imagine!
Arina Rizzoti was not a soldier and she was never going to be.
Something was very wrong with DarqueOps lately and all four of the
women in her department could sense it. They had talked about it
as much as they dared. You never know who's listening, so they
seldome said anything explicit, but they could read in one another's
faces and incinuations.
Arrina was ready to do something drastic. She called the other
three arbitors together on a hill just outside of town. She was
proposing a defection. A scary thing to contemplate. And she knew
that the moment she spoke it, that if any of the three didn't agree
with her, that they would have her killed and she would have no way
of suspecting it. It would just happen.
She laid out her plan to escape to Seattle and join Boeing. She
had heard of other DarqueOps soldiers in Seattle defecting. The other
three women seemed appalled at the idea but then Arina reminded them
of the dark coarse that DarqueOps was heading down and invited them
to think about what life as a soldier would be like. She invited them
to envision being at war against Infocation and president Minton.
Then she made an empassioned appeal for Seattle. There was no knowing
what would be there when they got there, but it could be something
wonderful.
The other three women were of the opinion that Sharon Shafer was
just toying with Seattle and that if she ever really got tired of the
Seattle problem she would bomb it out of existence. Arina still
insisted. She begged them to go to Seattle and find out what their
options were once they got there. She reminded them of all the bad
things they'd said about DarqueOps lately. In the end they decided
to join her. None of them wanted to be soldiers in Sharon Shafer's
army.
Christian Scinta [01]
The area around Seattle was breathtaking. Outside of the wall there
was rebelion in the streets. The Seattle suburbs had been trashed.
There was anti-government graffiti everywhere. People threw rocks at
DarqueOps soldiers if they ever showed their faces on the streets.
Boeing had not only created a safe zone within the wall, but the people
outside the wall had established a zone of lawlessness that made it
difficult for DarqueOps to even get to the battlezone around the wall.
The wall itself was a technological marvel. It was technically a
geodysic dome of concrete, steel and plastiglass, but everyone called
it the wall. The thunderous sounds of Boeing aircraft zooming back
and forth around the perimeter was nearly continuous. You almost always
had to shout into a person's ear to be heard.
None of them had any idea how easy or difficult it would be to get into
Seattle once they got there but it was surprisingly easy. They were
approached by a vigilanti squad on the streets, they announced themselves
as DarqueOps defectors and they were imediately escorted to some Boeing
PCA soldiers who brought them into a staging area to be vetted. Inside
the wall in the staging area there was a surprisingly high number of
DarqueOps defectors. The fear was that it would take a very long time
to be vetted. But the fact that they had Bradford McNeeley with them
--even though he had not yet regained consciousness-- got them bumped
to the front of the line. And Christian's story about the Children of
the Rose was more than enough to get them approved and brought inside.
Once inside he was introduced to some higher ups at Boeing who were
very interested to know all that he knew about DarqueOps. He gave them
top secret information about a DarqueOps emulator who was emulating
a Boeing Vice President named Shane Wilson. Boeing had already suspected
Mr. Wilson might be a spy and had restricted him from top secret
information and had him under surveilance. But now that Christian had
confirmed that he wasn't even Shane Wilson, they simply incarcerated the
fake Mr. Wilson. Boeing operatives shared what information they had with
Christian as well and it became clear to him that Jerod Brannigan must be
alive --or must have been recently-- and must be helping in this endeavor.
He could just tell that somewhere along the line, Children of the Rose's
stolen technology had helped Boeing get this far.
The decision to come to Seattle and ally with Boeing had gone as
smoothly as possible. He was now in a great position to help Boeing
transform the world. His personal life, however, was now a tumultuous
mess.
Christian Scinta was a very lonely man; and had been for a very long
time. He was aging and he had come to terms with the likelihood that he
would die alone. And then all of a sudden Crael had changed all that.
She was a breathtakingly beautiful young woman. He had comported himself
in a completely professional manner during their entire journey. And then
after they had arrived safely in Seattle she had begun coming on to him.
It had caught him completely off guard. She was half his age and he had
just never suspected that such a woman would be attracted to him.
So they had dated. They had only been in Seattle for less than a week
and they had been out every night for the last three nights. Last night her
uncle had regained concsiousness and it was just such a joyous day. Crael
was positively glowing. And tonight Crael had suggested that they should
have sex. Crael was a Christian, but not Catholic, and she didn't seem
to feel the need to wait until marriage. He suggested that they get
married and she really didn't like that idea. Maybe some day, but not
after only a week. So he suggested that they wait. And she didn't
like that idea either.
And so why did they have to adhere to his religion anyway? In a partnership,
shouldn't they seek some sort of compromise? Maybe her religious values could
be their guide in sexual matters and his values could be their guide in other
matters. No. That was the kind of shady justification that sinners always
resorted to. If he had sex with her and then he was truly repentant afterward,
the Lord would forgive. Right? Why did she have to be so beautiful? She
made it so difficult to do the right thing.
Liz Cohen [10]
When Sharon Shafer had first approached Liz Cohen about working for DarqueOps it
felt like a dream come true. She felt like she was being called up to the big leagues
to help make the big decisions that would shape the world. When she got invited to
be Sharon's lover as well it was a tremendous added bonus.
All of that seemed like ages ago. Now Liz felt like Sharon Shafer's slave. Sharon
was determined to micro-manage EVERYTHING. Sharon worked Liz around the clock and was
never satisfied with her work. Liz worked as hard as she could on steering Sharon's
vision and all she ever got was criticism for it.
There was no longer any point to hoping that a trip to Sharon's office would end up
with them naked on the couch. That almost never happened anymore. And when it did
happen, it was one more opportunity for Sharon to criticize her.
She no longer liked being here in Saron's office. Today Sharon was livid, even more
than usual, about all of the DarqueOps defections. Liz couldn't think of any tactful
way to tell Sharon that the defections were a result of the way she was running DarqueOps.
And then Sharon yelled at her about how the purges of unemployeds was going too slow.
The unemployeds had not starved to death yet and Sharon was growing impatient; even though
the plan to starve the urban unemployeds had only just been implemented.
When Sharon took her to task about lowering standards for DarqueOps officers so that they
could speed up recruiting, it almost made Liz sad enough to cry. Sharon had become a
deliberately hurtful person, and she knew all of Liz Cohen's weaknesses. Liz tried to
reach out to Sharon in the hopes that she might break through Sharon's icy disposition
but Sharon just barked out "Don't you touch me!" and ordered her out of her office.
Vash Mecklinger [01]
Vash Mecklinger woke up and tried to figure out what was going on.
He was someplace dimly lit. It looked like a basement in an unemployed's
house. His head hurt and he felt the back of his head. There was a
huge lump. He was pretty sure he had a concussion. And his jaw hurt.
And he realized that it was because there was a ball gag in his mouth.
He felt woozy. He noticed an IV in his arm. He went to get up and
found that he couldn't. He could still feel his legs. He felt them
with his free arm and discovered that he was bound in a metal contraption
of some sort. Metal that was too thick and sturdy for there to be any
hope of forcing his way through it.
Vash's eyes began to adjust to the dim light. He could see forms in
the darkness. They were other people. Minutes later, as his eyes
adjusted more, he began to make out the details of the people. They
had on uniforms. They were members of the Housing and Shelter Private
Corporate Army just like he was. No. Wait. At least one had on a
uniform from the Energy Supply PCA. And there, in the far corner, there
was one from the Information Supply PCA. Why were they all bound up
like this? And what were they doing in an unemployed's basement?
Matilda Jackson [01]
"Have you any news?" Those were the code words. That seemed like
a strange order for the words to be in, and a very fancy way to pronounce
them. In the unemployeds only slums people didn't speak that way. But
the man had said she had to say them exactly that way.
As she shuffled down the street she realized this was going to be
harder than she thought. Nobody was making much eye contact. If only
there was some way to tell who to ask. And, more importantly, who not
to. She saw and old lady who looked similar to herself. She stepped in
her path and asked "Have you any news?" The woman shrieked and ran
the other way down the street. Matilda was also frightened. She decided
to give up. This could never work. She began to walk home.
She was so sad she was about to cry. She had been so excited by this
idea. But it was too difficult. It would never work. But then she saw
a younger man make eye contact. Without thinking she stepped in his
path and asked "Have you any news?" The young man replied "What?!?" and
gave her a mean look as though he might want to kill her. But he didn't
kill her she just kept on walking.
Come on. She could do this if she tried. That hadn't been
so bad.
She started trying again. Trying to be more discerning about who to ask.
She tried again. Failed again. Tried Again. Failed again. Five more times
and then she gave up again. She was almost in tears. And then she spied a
middle aged man. And she got a sense about him. He was just ever so slightly
easier to make eye contact with. She sidestepped desperately into his path.
"Have you any news?" she asked. The man put his hands forward and she put
her hands in his. And then he began telling her things. Amazing things.
He told her that on the telivisions, a woman with short black hair who
looked like and claimed to be and sounded like Hotcha was using videomercials
to spread a message of love. He told her that in some cities far away there
were people with guns that were shooting back at the 1WG. He told her that
there was a place named France that was beyond the 1WG's control. And he
told her that in other cities people had begun writing messages against
corporations on buildings. And he told her he had seen two such messages in
this city. And then he asked her "Have you any news?" She teared up and
confessed that she did not. He told her that was okay and then he hugged
her. Matilda Jackson had not been hugged in 30 years. People on the street
were looking at them funny. Suspecting them of miseducation probably.
But Matilda didn't care. She clung desperately to her hug and sobbed.
She let the man go and he smiled brightly at her and nodded and went on
his way. And Matilda spent the rest of her day wishing someone would ask
her if she had any news.
Rou Ring Chan [02]
Rou Ring Chan was having sex --great sex-- with his wonderful, loving girlfriend.
It wasn't what they were supposed to be doing, but then there was now no time when
they were supposed to be having sex. They were the two busiest people on the boat
and now, their every waking hour was filled with resposabilities, and so sometimes
they would just push everything aside and get naked and go for it.
Much to the dismay of Rou Ring's girflfriend, Zhao Ning, Rou Ring would often
leave the i2 turned on but muted. And, even during the throws of passion, he
would have half an eye on the news that it was their duty to compile and report.
Just as Zhao Ning was about to arrive at a blissful existence, Rou Ring jumped
up, crawled over to the i2 and unmuted it. There was a report on New Zealand.
New Zealand was the situation that Rou had been paying special attention to
lately. The report was a pirate broadcast on a Chinese i2 site. And the report
was unbelievable. It seemed that apparently the New Zealand rebels had completely
destroyed all three bases of the 1WG and it's allied forces. The 1WG aligned forces
that remained had retreated to the southwestern island, and added to the government
forces there.
Rou Ring began writing furiously. Zhao Ning tried to pout at him but he was
so absorbed that he was not even liable to glance her way so she decided to take
care of herself by hand.
By the time the news delivery hour had come around, a great many more developments
were available to be reported on. New Zealand had completely split in half. The
Northeastern Island was now controlled by the rebels and on the southwestern island
the rebels were being massacred. Zhao Ning then gave news about the uprising in
South America. South American rebel armies were beginning to turn the tide on 1WG
forces all over the continent.
After the news reports, Xiang Xu, the leader of the society which lived on the boat
approached Rou Ring and told him he had reconsidered the idea Rou had once had about
helping the New Zealanders. Xu had members of the command council with him and even
the elders agreed that it was time to finally go ashore. They were going to take a
little vacation; head to New Zealand and see if the rebels needed any help.
Miles O'Connor [01]
Miles O'Connor stood on a grassy ridge and looked out at the men dressed in yellow
uniforms that were similar to his. They had dyed them by hand. They were very
proud of them. Across the way there was another group of men and women in similar
uniforms that were dyed blue. And one of the men had a white ball with black
hexagonal shapes on it. These men intended to break they law and play football
right here in the back hills of Scottland.
The slope of the hill made the game much more difficult, but this was the best
and most secluded location they could find to perform this illegal activity that had
taken so long to plan.
Once upon a time the establishment had been very involved in the promotion of sports.
It had served so many purposes and served them so well. It had provided a major
distraction and kept fans the whole world over interested in tracking trivial statistics
and following every intimate detail in the lives of their favorite players. It had
provided visible examples of how people could go from abject poverty to incredible wealth
overnight. Even though an infetesimal percentage of the population could become a
high payed baseball star, people would believe that the system was fair and that people
really could become a success in life because a handful of highly publicized people had
gone from rags to riches. And then, as time passed, the high salaries that these players
demanded could be used to engender sympathy for the Establishment class and outrage toward
unions in general. People came to subconsciously side with the owners and elites rather
than their own best intersts.
Now, there was the Manpower Hour television program available to fill many of those
roles. People believed that there was hope of success because the Manpower Hour was
all anyone could talk about. Only two people on the whole planet would win six days a
week, but nearly every person who had access to a television believed they were going
to win the Manpower Hour show and become a huge success. And so sports was no longer
really necessary, and over time it became dangerous. The estabishment found any large
social situation where many people gathered and had the opportunity to communicate to
be undesirable. Football games in particular had become rife with unauthorized and
rebeious behavior after matches had concluded. So during the second holy war all
football games were postponed. And after the war the games were never resumed and all
sports were slowly killed off. Nobody could quite figure out how sports had come to
be regarded as unChristian, but most world citizens now obediently agreed that it was.
But not these ten men and womn. Miles O'Connor and his Irish friends intended to score
more goals than their Scottish adversaries and they intended to enjoy themselves in the
process.
Julie Jungles [01]
"I'm the mother ****ing CEO Rob. That means you don't tell me what the **** to
do. I tell you what to do. And then you shut your ****ing mouth and you do it."
"But we won't be able to make it the same."
"Ask me if I give a **** Rob! I'm not going out there anymore. Get me some
actors or I'm not doing the show anymore. Did you not see someone throw a ****ing
tomato at me Rob? A ****ING TOMATO! Me! Julie Jungles! They're not getting
any better Rob, they're getting worse. Get me some actors and a sound stage and
we'll make it look just like a real Manpower on the Street segment. We can
even Holoproject real live action cityscapes in behind it. It'll look totally
authentic."
"Julie!"
"If you say my name like that one more ****ing time Rob..."
"What if we get real people and invite them inside."
"Then it would be Manpower NOT on the ****ing STREET anymore Rob! Jesus Chrst!
How the **** did you ever graduate from that fancy school? All we need is one of
these ****ing ungrateful unemployeds to go shooting their mouth off about how
they got invited into MOTS and it was fake. Use your ****ing brain! I'm not
working with real unemployeds any more Rob. I'm just not. And I'm the ****ing
boss of everything so I don't have to. YOU have to get your people together and
figure out how to shoot the show with ACTORS and make it look real, and that's
really all there is to it. And I'm SO done hearing your voice. Get the **** out."
Buy This Book Now
[next: I Believe the Children Are Our Future]
