Phil Elmore's Blog, page 12

Mack Bolan’s Endless War… Ends?

One point six million words.  1,560,000 plus some assorted thousands here and there — that is the total number of words I have written over the course of 22 books in the Mack Bolan, Executioner, and Stony Man series for Gold Eagle/WorldWide Library.

When it was announced that Harper Collins was buying Harlequin Enterprises, which publishes mostly women’s romance fiction and also the Gold Eagle imprints, I thought it would not be long before things changed.  This week word was handed down that Harlequin is choosing to focus on its women’s fiction lines, where it truly makes its money, and not on the men’s adventure imprints that have existed since 1981.

I don’t regret this decision.  While it’s unfortunate that the series has ended in its current form, it’s possible that Linda Pendleton, original series author Don Pendleton’s widow, will do something with the series, as she’s indicated her family holds the rights.  A Mack Bolan movie starring Bradley Cooper has been discussed in Hollywood.  The original 37 Executioner novels written by Don Pendleton are being released as ebooks this month.  The series has a future — I just don’t know what it will be.

As for me, while I will miss the characters with whom I spent countless coffee-fueled, sleep-deprived hours (and those 1.6 million words), after 22 volumes (a paltry number compared to some who’ve written for the series for many more years), I am satisfied.  I am proud of my contributions to a series that I first came to love while reading my father’s collection of Executioner books when I was a teenager.  I’m proud that I can say I enjoyed that series very much as a young man… and came to one day contribute to it as an older one.  I’m proud to have been able to pay tribute to the ideals of justice against crime and predation that Mack Bolan and Stony Man represent.

I also welcome the chance to do new things.  Writing Mack Bolan occupied a tremendous amount of my time — time that I may now devote to other projects.  If the opportunity arises to return to Mack Bolan’s endless war, I will gladly do so.  Until then, I’ll let him enjoy the rest he’s earned… and I, with respect to writing his adventures, will do the same.

Technocracy: The Power of a Single Viral Video

My WND Technocracy column this week is about Sean Yetman, an alleged military fake who became famous when a video of him in uniform went viral.

What makes possible all this shaming, good and bad, left and right, politically correct and politically incorrect, is modern interconnectivity.

Yetman was confronted by an actual veteran who quizzed him on various things a real soldier would know.  Though he failed miserably in answering these, Yetman continued to insist he really had been “special forces.”

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 48, “Orrin”

 

[image error]Sparks danced across the carapace of the military Og.  Loran and Montauk advanced, triggering their weapons at maximum output, spraying the armored monster with as much firepower as they had.  The Og shuddered, settled lower on its hydraulic legs, and spread its arms in a convulsive motion.  The act caused its weapons pods to extend fully.  Peyton drew in a breath to shout a warning.

The Og extended its arms and drenched the warehouse in flame.

Peyton was blown backward by the wave of destruction.  Micro-missiles, bullets, gouts of flame, and sonic-denial pulses battered him simultaneously, ripping up the floor around him.  He saw Loran blown to pieces, his legs and one arm ripped free of his metal torso.  Montauk, too, fell under the hail of projectiles.

The sheer power of the attack pushed Peyton across the floor of the warehouse, rolling him, ripping him, puncturing him.  He felt countless wounds open on his body, felt shrapnel and bullets and flame cut him and gouge him and scorch him.

Orrin pressed its attack, following him, firing again and again.  Peyton watched his body open up.  He saw holes blown through his arms, watched furrows dug in his chest.  He convulsed with the pain, shook with the attack, felt himself being hammered into the floor.  He tasted ash and hot metal.

He realized he could see from only one eye.  The other was swollen shut or gone forever; he did not know which.  In the dimming tunnel of his remaining sight, he saw a flash of blonde hair.  He saw his daughter.  He saw Annika, standing next to VanClef, clutching her pocket watch in her hand.  She was crying. She was calling his name.  He couldn’t hear her, but he could read her lips.

Daddy.  Daddy.

Orrin stood above him now.  The racks of its weapons pods were empty.  Its electric guns spun, but no rounds came from their barrels.  It had emptied its payload completely.  As Peyton watched through his one good eye, the blade of an enormous combat knife snapped into place, attached to Orrin’s right forearm.  The monster was so close now that Peyton could see flecks of rust on the olive-drab paint coating the machine’s armor plating.

Stand up.  Stand up and fight.  Stand up for Annika.

He felt his eye start to close.  He didn’t want to close it. He couldn’t help himself.  The world, and his pain, began to recede.  Stand up. Stand up…

“STAND UP!” shouted Montauk in his ear.  “STAND UP AND FIGHT!”

Peyton’s eye snapped open.  He rolled aside just as the blade of Orrin’s knife slammed into the floor between his face and Montauk’s. The badly damaged Og rolled in one direction, while Peyton went the other.  Peyton caught a glimpse of the damage: Montauk had both arms, but his legs were gone. He was dragging himself along using only his upper limbs.

Peyton stood.

The military Og advanced, thrusting with its knife.  Peyton dodged the blade, felt it cut him to the ribs on his right side, the side he couldn’t see.  He grabbed the metal arm and, with all his remaining strength, squeezed.

The armor was too strong to give… but the wrist joint as not.  Peyton crushed it, pulled it free, and threw the severed hand far away.  Orrin tried to counter by slashing Peyton open, but Peyton still had the limb.  He drove it into the floor, so deeply that the blade lodged fast.  Then let himself fall to the floor and rammed both booted feet into Orrin’s knee joints, causing the top-heavy Og to lose balance and fall sideways.

The combination of Peyton’s weight and that of the military Og’s snapped the blade off, ripped it free of the floor, and sent it spinning across the room.  The soldier-Og simply rolled out of its fall and came up on its feet again, the fingers of its remaining hand held rigid like a spear.  It again began to advance on Peyton.

It did not see Montauk crawling behind it.  The damaged Og was dragging Loran.  As Peyton watched, Montauk peeled back a layer of metal foil over an opening in Loran’s chest, reached inside, and pulled out a pair of heavy cables.  The Og snapped the cables apart in its pincers.  When it drew one severed end against another, sparks flew.

Power.  Loran had a power source in its chest.

If you’re an Og, well, let’s say your pal here might not walk away from the experience.

Montauk beckoned, holding up the spitting, sparking wires.

The distance was too great, and Montauk could not reach more than half a meter above the floor in his current state. Peyton knew at once what Montauk was asking of him.

The military Og lunged for him.

Let’s do it, Peyton thought.

Peyton balled his fists and started boxing. He could feel his knuckles breaking under the power of the strikes, could feel the skin flaying from his fingers, could feel the armored carapace giving under his jackhammer advance.  Orrin shook left and right as Peyton focused on varying his targets, pushing the Og this way and that, trying to overwhelm whatever governed its equilibrium.  It was working.  He was pushing it back.

What came next would be bad.

He judged the distance very carefully.  This was difficult to do, with his depth perception gone, but the warehouse floor was tiled.  Each square was about the size of his foot.  He counted tiles, using them as a grid, waiting until Montauk was in position.

Peyton dropped to his knees, feeling something break in his kneecap. He ignored the pain, grabbed Orrin’s knee joints, and pulled with all his might.

The military Og smashed into the floor.  Montauk struck, jamming the wires from Loran’s chest into the junction of Orrin’s tiny metal skull and the neck stalk that supported it.

An electric arc traveled across Orrin’s chest.  The military Og convulsed, smoked, shrieked once in a mechanical death howl.  Then it was still.  Montauk collapsed next to it, trembling slightly, still holding the wires.  The smell of burning insulation and roasted human flesh filled the air.

“Amazing,” said VanClef, walking over to inspect the dead Ogs.  “I’ve never seen such loyalty in an Og before. Not to anyone human, at least.”

“He was more human than you,” said Peyton, swaying on his feet.

VanClef frowned and shot Peyton in the face.

Technocracy: America, you’ve been duped by Left’s phony videos

My WND Technocracy column this week was inspired by all the faked propaganda videos being put out by “social justice warriors.”

Very few people stop to understand the social media culture war that is raging around them.

I really hate that term, “Social Justice Warriors.”  These hysterical, hand-wringing activists aren’t “warriors” at all.  They’re weak-minded tools.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 47, “Loose Ends”

 

[image error]“You think you’re very clever, don’t you, Annika?” VanClef demanded. He held in his hand a fistful of wiring, which he had ripped from the climate control computer in the back of the cargo truck. “I have to admit, I would not have considered the electronics in a computer control system to be a suitable broadcast exploit. It didn’t occur to me that a system so simple could be made to respond that way.”

“I could show you how,” said Annika.

She sat handcuffed to a chair in the middle of the vast, empty warehouse. The truck was parked nearby. On another chair, positioned opposite her own, VanClef sat, rubbing his silver pistol with a polishing cloth, checking the weapon’s magazine and the rounds inside it.

“That’s not necessary,” said VanClef.

The only other object in the warehouse was an enormous crate. To Annika it looked like a coffin. It was big enough that Daddy could have walked inside, if he wanted and the lid was off. She didn’t like that thought.

“You do realize that having your father come here is precisely what I wanted?” VanClef told her. “Project violet must be sanitized. That means purging any evidence of it. Your father, regrettably, is evidence.”

“If you want Daddy to come here, why did you smash the computer so I couldn’t make watches appear?”

“Because you’re ruining my timing,” said VanClef. “My men weren’t ready. I hate having to rush them into the field without proper planning.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Annika. “The people you sent out to kill Daddy won’t come back.”

“My dear,” said VanClef, “these are highly trained government operatives. What’s more, they’re smart enough to be loyal to me before Intelligence. Your father is no match for trained agents with laser-guided smart carbines.”‘

“My Daddy is the biggest, strongest man there is.”

“Your father is a side effect,” said VanClef. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? Project Violet’s purpose was to create super-intelligent children. Children like you and the other girls. We were never funded to create bag-job monstrosities like Ian Peyton.”

“Daddy is not a side effect!” Annika told him.

“Of course he is,” said VanClef. “The process of rebalancing and enhancing the endocrine system, introducing the genetic markers and manipulations we require… it is a very complicated science. In order to make the DNA sample viable, it requires an almost super-human donor. The implants we grafted to Peyton’s systems made him as he is today, but we didn’t do that for him. It was an ancillary effect, a collateral result of the endocrine manipulation itself. We simply wanted his DNA to produce you.”

“That’s why being pregnant killed my mother,” said Annika.

“You’ve guessed that, have you?” said VanClef. “Yes. Regrettably, the mortality rate among surrogate mothers was one hundred percent. Their bodies simply could not withstand the strain.”

“You’re a very bad man,” said Annika.

“That’s a meaningless concept,” said VanClef. “I’m an /intelligent/ man, doing what I was trained to do. I’m trying to better all of humanity, Annika. You and your… your siblings, if you’ll allow me to misuse the word for convenience, will be the key to a new class of super-computing soldiers. Imagine what we can accomplish if we are able to operate unfettered by electronic hardware. Thousands, millions of computations carried out within the magnificent human brain alone. The ability to integrate concepts, to see patterns in world events. Why, one day, your genetic descendants could be a master race, an elite ruling class.”

“You’re not going to find the other girls,” said Annika. “We’re already smarter than you think we are.”

“I found you, didn’t I?” said VanClef. “To be honest, the only reason you took priority was because of your father’s activities. I couldn’t risk him bringing undue attention to the Project. As it is, I will be lucky to survive this. It’s going to take all of my diplomatic abilities to get back in the good graces of Intelligence. I’ve strayed a bit far afield… but they’ll forgive me if I can present them with you, at least some of your sisters, and a clean slate with no loose ends. That’s why we’re waiting here now. You’re bait. I’m waiting for your father and, when he arrives, I’m going to tie up the loose end he represents.”

“How many Daddies are there?” Annika asked.

“There were three others,” said VanClef. “I used them to take down your father. Unfortunately, they didn’t work together as I’d hoped. Big Bill was always a disappointment to me. If he had been successful, I could have used him to move the Project forward. But he was unstable. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, among many other issues.”

“So Daddy is the father of all the girls.”

“No,” said VanClef. “With only a single, viable DNA sample from one donor, I used a DNA sequencer to create unrelated variations. Endless genetic possibilities resulted from a single batch. Your father is, technically, the father of all the girls, but only on paper. In reality, you are his only genetic offspring. At best, the other girls are very distant cousins. I will collect those girls I can. The others I will eliminate.”

“Your dead men are ‘loose ends,'” said Annika. “Couldn’t you hear the shooting outside?”

“No,” said VanClef. “Your hearing extends higher in the audible range than an ordinary human being’s. It’s part of your genetic heritage. Why? Are you claiming you heard a gunfight?”

“I’m not claiming anything,” said Annika. “The men you sent are all dead now.”

VanClef holstered his gun. He was so angry he didn’t even bother snapping the retention strap closed. He wanted a fast draw. He wanted to put a round through Ian Peyton’s brain, put a stop to this monster once and for all. Placing two fingers to the transceiver in his ear, he said, “This is VanClef. All units, report.”

There was no response.

“I told you,” said Annika. “My Daddy’s coming.”

“Shut up!” VanClef told her. “It’s a communications error.” Again, he said, “This is VanClef. Report! I say again, any available units, report.”

“He’s going to pull your arms and legs off,” said Annika. “He’s going to crush your skull.”

“Shut up!” shouted VanClef.

The doors to the warehouse, which were locked and bolted, shuddered as something impossibly heavy crashed against them. The very walls of the structure shook under the attack. VanClef’s hand fell to his gunbelt.

“When you’re dead,” said Annika, “we’re going to go through your pockets.”

The doors to the warehouse crashed inward. Metal shrapnel littered the floor. Peyton had shattered the hinges into which the doors were built.

“I want my daughter,” he said. His voice was a menacing rumble. “Give her to me and I won’t break everything you have.”

“Peyton,” said VanClef, standing. “I have someone I’d like you to meet. I call him Orrin.” He reached out and pulled the lid off the crate. It fell to the floor. The creature that emerged was as big as Peyton.

“Daddy!” Annika called.

The armored, bipedal figure turned to face Peyton. Its head extended on a metal stalk. An array of cameras built into its sloped forehead projected laser targeting lights. Its heavy arms raised. Weapons pods snapped into place, revealing gun barrels and the noses of small missiles. A military designation was spray-painted on the metal monster’s flank. The whole thing was a mottled desert brown in color.

“You don’t have to serve him,” said Peyton. “You can be your own person.”

“Orrin is a military Og,” said VanClef. “He’s not a person at all. And I’m afraid he does have to obey every word I speak to him. I am his commanding officer, after all.”

“Don’t do this,” said Peyton. “Just give me my daughter.”

“Orrin,” said VanClef, “kill this man.”

The military Og began marching toward him. Peyton lowered his shoulder.

“Well,” he said quietly. “Come on, then.”

Technocracy: Dying In My Sleep

My WND Technocracy column this week is about a very personal issue: The need to get your sleep apnea treated.

But you don’t feel rested. You never feel rested.

I use a CPAP machine now and, after adapting to the machine, I’m seeing real benefits from the treatment.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 46, “A Laudable Shade of Purple”

 

[image error]Peyton’s feet hit the hood of the car. He lowered his shoulder and put himself into the wind screen, cracking it, causing the driver to swerve. The car’s nose crumpled against the wall of the stripeasy. The driver switched off the car’s power plant as he and the passenger piled out.

Montauk was already in position, raking the hood and roof of the car with his automatic weapon. Peyton did not see Loran. The two men took cover, one behind the car, another behind the closest garbage bin. Montauk seemed intent on turning the car into plastic shards.

Peyton circled the car. When the taller of the two men realized the vehicle was no shelter, he turned and pointed his service automatic.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer, Peyton!”

When Peyton didn’t stop, the tall man emptied his weapon into the giant’s chest.

The bullets tore into his flesh. Peyton felt them pass; felt them rend his flesh; felt the one that punctured his lung. He dropped to one knee, staggered. The pain caused the ache in his burned arm to flare. His vision doubled, then tripled.

He laughed.

The taller man’s face turned pale. Peyton, still stumbling, reached out and grabbed him by the throat. He could already feel his body healing. It felt, in fact, as if it was working faster than it had in the past. That was probably because of the damage to his arm. His glands were working overtime to fix the damage, flooding his body with whatever it was they produced that accomplished these things.

“It’s going to take more than you,” said Peyton. “I should–”

“STOP!” shouted the second man. Peyton turned. This one was short and balding, with a fat face. He wore a stained trench coat. He was holding Loran by the neck joint, with his other hand, he pressed a small, black box to Loran’s head.

“That’s low, Moxley,” said Montauk, who had stopped firing and now pointed his weapons’ barrel to the sky. “That’s low even for you.”

“What?” asked Peyton. In his fist, the tall man struggled. “What’s going on?”

“Stun gun,” said Moxley. “Just an electrical transformer. Nothing more complicated than that. Takes its power cell and pumps out a hundred times the volts at low amperage. It hurts to get stuck with one… if you’re human. If you’re an Og, well, let’s say your pal here might not walk away from the experience.”

“Let’s not be hasty, Detective Moxley,” said Montauk.

“Shut up and put that ‘noomer on the ground,” said Moxley. “Everybody just disengage. We aren’t here to take you in. Peyton, stop choking Neiring.”

“He’s referring to his tall friend,” said Montauk. The Og laid his weapon carefully on the pavement. “Inspector Neiring, there. I might add that Inspector Neiring has achieved a laudable shade of purple.”

Peyton released Neiring. The inspector staggered back against the wrecked ground car, massaging his throat.

“How do you know our names?” Moxley demanded.

“You don’t exactly keep a low profile,” said Montauk. “You are known to us here in Hongkongtown.”

“‘Us,'” said Moxley. “By that you mean other Ogs? How many are there?”

“Enough,” said Montauk.

“Harry,” said Neiring. His voice cracked. “We don’t have time to argue like this.”

“What does he mean?” Peyton asked. He flexed his fingers. Moxley caught the movement and, if he was smart, understood that only Peyton’s regard for Loran kept the big man from wading through him.

“We didn’t come for you,” said Moxley. “We came for VanClef. Just your bad luck, we found you instead.”

“VanClef is mine,” said Peyton.

“You’re in no position to make demands!” Moxley said. As Neiring retreived and reloaded his pistol, Moxley gestured with the stun gun. “I mean it, I’ll give this creep the whole battery. He might live. You never really know, with an Oggy.”

“There’s no need to be overtly hateful,” said Montauk.

“VanClef has my daughter,” said Peyton.

“What do you want me to do?” Moxley demanded. “You think we can just keep this quiet? You’re a walking wrecking machine, Peyton. Do you realize the position it puts us in, finding you here? How many people have you killed?” Have you even kept count? Do you realize the gleeful holiday the news outlets have been having with them? Some of those murders were pornographic, they were so imaginative. You couldn’t have asked for more attention.”

“They were child molesters,” said Peyton. “Sexual predators. Garbage living among good people. One of them was going to rape and murder a little boy. None of the people I killed will be missed. The world is better without them.”

Moxley stared at Peyton, his expression hard.

“He’s right,” gasped Neiring. “God help me, he’s right.”

“He knows I am,” said Peyton to Neiring. A green blob of illumination danced across the wall of the strip easy. It moved left, then right, before finally alighting on Neiring’s chest.

Peyton looked at the blob of light quizically.

“DOWN!” shouted Moxley. He dropped his stun gun, shoved Loran away from his chest, and threw himself over the wrecked hood of the car. His momentum carried him into Neiring. The collision was not gentle. Blood sprayed.

Peyton turned; only then did he hear the shot, echoing through the channel between the buildings. That single sniper’s round prompted other gunmen to open up with their own weapons. Peyton, on instinct, dropped low to shield the fallen Moxley and Neiring with his body. He felt several small arms rounds rip into his back. He grunted.

A familiar pneumatic chatter filled the wide alleyway. That would be Loran and Montauk again. As Peyton looked down at them, Neiring rolled Moxley over. The fat detective had a bloody wound in his flank. Neiring ripped off the sleeve of his uniform and pressed the fabric against Moxley’s wound.

“It’s all right,” said Moxley. “It’s in and out. I don’t think it went deep enough to hit anything important.”

“You saved my life,” said Neiring. He looked up at Peyton, looming over them both. “And he saved both of us.”

“You really owe me lunch now,” said Moxley, muttering.

“VanClef is in the warehouse across the street,” Nering told Peyton. “We tracked him tanks to a radiolocator in his bloodstream. We came to arrest him. We… we really weren’t looking for you anymore, Peyton. Mox wasn’t kidding when he said it was bad luck.”

“Why?” Peyton asked.

“Because we both know what you’re trying to do,” said Neiring. “VanClef has been disavowed by the government. Go get him, Peyton. Get your daughter back.”

“What will you do?”

“We’ll let you go,” Neiring promised. “If you’re gone, somehow the dust can settle. I’m not sure how yet. But we’ll manage it. Leave Hongkongtown. Live your life. Let things get back to their crazy version of normal, around here.”

“Why would you do this for me?” Peyton asked. “Why? You said yourself, you can’t keep it quiet.”

“I believe in the law,” said Neiring. “But I believe in what’s right more.”

Peyton stood. The shooting was over. Montauk and Loran were scouting the far end of the alley, surrounded by corpses.

“Would you really have killed Montauk’s friend?” Peyton asked Moxley.

“Maybe if I had a power cell for the stun gun,” said Moxley. Something in his face was… off. Peyton looked at him carefully.

“Is it your wound?” Peyton asked. “Are you–”

“I’ll be fine,” said Mox. “Just get your little girl. I’ll pretend I never heard of you.”

“Why?” Peyton asked again.

“I had a family,” Moxley said. “Once.”

Peyton nodded. He turned and, flanked by Loran and Montauk, left the alley without another word.

Technocracy: Sudden Infamy Syndrome

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the instant fame some celebrities manage to achieve by voicing their foolish opinions on social media.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 45, “Worse for Wear”

 

[image error]He was several blocks from the Redlight now. The gold watches had brought him this far, but now they were gone. He scanned the traffic screens and weather displays, storefronts and kiosks, hoping for another marker, wishing for a direction. The sirens of an approaching police hovercraft cut through the air and through the ringing in his ears. He turned in time to see the craft cutting between a shuttered stripeasy and a pawn shop.

“Put your hands behind your head!” announced a voice projected from the hovercraft’s public address system. “You are under arrest!”

They were private cops, not government employees. He clenched his burned hand, feeling the skin crack, grimacing at the pins-and-needles sensation that accompanied the terrible itching in his skin. The arm was healing quickly. Already, fresh patches of unburned skin were visible through the charred outer layer.

“Go away,” said Peyton. “Go away and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“Put your hands behind your head!” the cop repeated. The nose of the hovercraft closed to within a meter of where he stood. Automatic guns mounted on the nose of the craft swiveled to target him–

He put his fists together, raised his arms, and brought both hands down on the nose of the hovercraft. The blow left a crater in the plastic shell. Peyton scrambled up the front of the machine, between the nose guns, and wrenched open the hatch leading to the cockpit.

A pair of helmeted police officers looked up, eyes wide, only to shout in alarm when he reached in and grabbed them both. He slammed the two men together with bone jarring force and then dropped them, now unconscious, back in their craft. He paused, and, before jumping down from the vehicle, reached inside and smashed the control panel. He had no idea if that would stop them from using their guns, but he hoped it might.

He landed heavily on the pavement, only to come face to face with a robot-like figure in a rain slicker.

“Friend Peyton,” said Montauk. “You look considerably worse for wear.”

Peyton nodded and ran. Montauk followed as if this were the most natural response to his greeting. A similar Og, whom Peyton assumed was Loran, fell in behind them both. Loran carried a penumatic weapon as he had outside the school. A similar gun was slung over Montauk’s metal shoulder.

“May I ask where we’re running?” Montauk said, jogging next to Peyton. His lilting voice was unaffected by the exertion; he could not be winded because he did not breathe. At least, Peyton didn’t think he did. He realized he wasn’t sure.

“Annika,” said Peyton. “Look for a gold watch. It will be on one of the traffic screens, or a store display. Anything connected to a network.”

“Breadcrumbs,” said Montauk. “Brilliant.”

“What?” Peyton asked. “How did you find me, anyway?”

“The wame way the police did,” said Montauk. “The same way your enemies will, unless we lie low. The interefrence Annika and the girls have been running only works if you’re not actively engaged in bloody fights in the midst of public thoroughfares, Peyton.”

Peyton stopped running, taking shelter behind a vacant communications kiosk at the corner of a pay-credit loanery. He turned to the Og. Montauk crouched next to him, while Loran took up a position to guard their backs. “What are you talking about?” Peyton asked.

Montauk shook its head. “It probably is not my place to tell you this. Forgive me as needed. Annika and the other girls from the school have been manipulating the public surveillance algorithms. It’s a combination of something akin to a denial-of-service attack; they’ve been assaulting the search patterns, disrupting them with random number associations. And they’ve also made a habit of appearing prominently on camera to foul any spot checks.”

“I don’t understand anything you just said,” Peyton told him.

“Your daughter and her fellow classmates are all geniuses, Peyton,” said Montauk. “She’s smarter than anyone understands. They all are. Their intelligence is an order of magnitude greater this Project of VanClef’s could have anticipated. It’s why he lost control of the school from within.”

“So Annika did something to the public drones and cameras?”

“They all did,” said Montauk. “Haven’t you wondered how it’s possible for the two of you to move around Hongkongtown without drawing any police attention? Not since that street doctor, Gorsky, tried to turn you in for the reward. Annika told me she conferred with her classmates shortly thereafter to prevent that from happening again. They used their expertise with the networks to confuse the computers processing the images… and they further muddied the waters using those of their number who had already escaped the school. Imagine the difficulty that would cause a processing computer: Just when it believes it has isolated Annika, three little blonde girls who look almost exactly like her appear on camera simultaneously in different parts of the city.It was a brilliant plan.”

“I didn’t realize,” said Peyton. “I thought we were being careful.”

“I’ve no doubt that you were,” said Montauk, “But if not for Annika and her counterparts, the police would have picked you up long ago. The problem we now face is that a region-wide alert has been scrambled in response to your battle with the other… whatever that was.”

“Big Bill Stillwater,” said Peyton.

“Of course,” said Montauk. The Og looked up and down the channel between the two buildings, his cameras whirring and moving. “We need to move, Peyton.”

“Where have you been?” Peyton asked, suddenly suspicious. “You weren’t at home after the school. Annika told me.”

“No,” said Montauk. “I’ve had some problems of my own. Human Services raided my flat and occasioned our sudden withdrawal from the premises.”

“Human Services?”

“An agency ostensibly charged with managing the sometimes delicate and always complicated relationships between certified humans and Augments,” said Montauk.

“I’ve never heard of that,” said Peyton.

“There’s no reason you should have,” said the Og. “There is no official Og presence in Hongkongtown; therefore Human Services does not travel in these circles. But my activities have drawn considerable attention from the mainland. It was only a matter of time.”

“Activities?”

“I’m a freedom fighter, Peyton,” said Montauk. “I’m one of several loosely organized cells fighting for Augment rights. There are many others. Some of them, like the Bhavik groups, I don’t trust and won’t work with. Loran was previously a member of a Bhavik-aligned cell before coming over to mine.”

“What?”

“Forgive me,” said Montauk. “It’s not important. But I should admit something to you, Peyton. My assistance to you and your daughter is not entirely altruistic. Annika has outlined for me her vision for how the world should work, a vision shared by her brilliant counterparts. They foresee a world in which humans and Augments live side by side, with no distinction made for what is and is not… normal. You can see, I trust, how Annika herself might feel about a given set of human specifications being declared more normal than another?”

Peyton looked down at his enormous hands. Ashes flecked from his burned arm, displaced by the new, glistening skin beneath. “I can,” he said. “I can see that.”

“I told you that my help was an investment in the future,” said Montauk. “I meant it.”

“But Annika’s a little girl,” said Peyton. “She doesn’t run the world.”

“Not yet, she doesn’t,” said Montauk. “They grow up faster than you think, Peyton.” It looked past Loran, suddenly alert. “Loran,” it said. “Do you hear–”

Loran was already bringing up its own weapon. The pneumatic gun spat projectiles as a ground car bounced up over the curb, crossed the street at the far end of the channel, and then shot up the opening, coming straight for them. Peyton stooed and braced himself, like a runner in a marathon, digging in his heels.

Montauk’s own weapon began to whine. The Og stood at Peyton’s right, heedless of return fire. Peyton looked at him for a moment. He wondered if he deserved such friendship, even if Montauk truly did believe he was protecting Annika’s vision of the future.

The ground car’s engine thrummed loudly. It was picking up speed. Peyton could see two men crouching behind the transparent wind screen. They ducked when Montauk’s projectiles stitched a line of smooth holes across that expanse.

Peyton waited. The car came closer. Still he waited. The grille of the car was almost on top of him.

Peyton sprang.

Technocracy: Gender Double Standards and the NYC Walking-Girl

My WND Technocracy column this week was inspired by the viral video of an attractive woman supposedly being harassed on the street in New York City.

Women are willing to overlook even felonious behavior if a man is attractive, but if he is unattractive, his desire for love, for sex, for intimate contact is nothing but “entitlement” and a prelude to rape.

The problem that I have with this video is that it is part of a comprehensive campaign, in social media and elsewhere, to malign all men as ruthless engines of predation.  The myth of “rape culture” is being used every day to harass men in the name of feminist “equality.”  Meanwhile, “body positivity” seems to apply only to women, who are encouraged to believe they are entitled to feel beautiful even when they aren’t.  Unattractive men, meanwhile, are decried as “entitled” if they react poorly to being snubbed by women whose standards they don’t meet.

Read the full column here in WND News.