Phil Elmore's Blog, page 16

Technocracy: In Defense of Google Reading Your Mail

My WND Technocracy column this week is about Google scanning your e-mail to, among other things, target ads and catch pedophiles.

What all this hand-wringing completely ignores… is that Gmail is not public infrastructure.

Read the full column here in WND News .

Episode 31, “A Hammer”

 

[image error]Peyton marveled at the small crowd of little girls. They were all blondes, their hair colors ranging from platinum to Annika’s gold locks to something like auburn. They were all exactly the same height; they had eyes that ranged from the blue of ice to a paler gray and even light green.  Their skin was fair and flawless; their features were fine, even noble.  They told him, one at a time: “I’m twelve years old.”

“My name is Peyton,” he said.  “Do you all go to school here?”

The little girls turned to one another, exchanging wide-eyed glances. Something passed between them without words. They looked back to Peyton and nodded, almost solemnly.

“I’m here to help you,” said Peyton. “Don’t be afraid.”

“We let you in,” said one of the girls. Her voice was very quiet.

“Would you… would you like to leave?” Peyton asked.  He could hear movement at his back. Montauk, Loran, and his daughter were entering the school.

Again the girls looked to each other.  Finally, they nodded, their heads moving in unison.

Montauk and Loran approached.  “Interesting,” it said. Its cameras clicked and whirred as it examined the crowd of twelve-year-olds. The girls took a collective step backward, perhaps unsure what to make of the two cyborgs.

When Annika appeared behind Peyton and the Ogs, the transformation was abrupt. The little girls lost their hesitation. They rushed forward to greet her, called her by name, embraced her without reservation. Peyton was touched by the homecoming.  Next to him, Montauk made an odd noise somewhere in its chassis. Peyton looked at the Og.

“I’m sorry,” said the Og. “They’re just so genuine. It would bring a tear to my eye, if I had eyes.”

The girls began whispering to each other. Peyton found it unnerving, although he was not sure why.  When they had come to what he assumed was consensus, nodding among themselves and turning eagerly to face him, it was Annika who came forward to act as their representative.

“Daddy,” she said, “the girls opened the doors twice today. Once was for you, and once was for Doctor Foster. He ran here when you broke down the outside doors. The girls thought you might want to ask him some questions alone, so they told him he could come in and be safe.”

The mob of little blonde girls moved as one toward a hatchway at the back of the room. It had a wheel lock on it, like something Peyton would expect to find in an undersea vessel.  The whole time, the girls spoke to each other in animated tones. Their voices were so similar that Peyton found it impossible to tell who was who except for Annika.

“I gave Annabelle an appendectomy.”

“Are your fingers burned? We have gel in the first aid kit.”

“You just read the instructions and did what they said. That’s not the same as giving an appendectomy. Anyone can read instructions.”

“We got a field report from Aria two weeks ago.”

“Mister VanClef was so mad!”

“I like Aria,” said Annika.

“Annabelle, you’re just mad because there’s a scar.”

“We sealed off the networks and purged them.”

“Am not.”

“Aubry has the accounts set up now.”

Peyton turned to Montauk as the girls set about opening the hatch. His look must have conveyed his confusion. “They’ve done much of the work necessary to liberate the school already,” said the Og.  “I gather they’ve been giving Vanclef’s minions considerable grief here.  Several escapes predate the computer error that put Annika on a public transport, destined for the gallery at your execution.”

“Your daughter,” said Peyton.  “Your daughter is one of the girls who got away.”

“Yes,” said Montauk.  “You can imagine my surprise. It is one of the connections between us, Peyton. Both our daughters fled this place… and then worked to free their siblings.  Those who remained here very cleverly — and recently — sealed themselves off from the staff. I think the pace of their lessons must have reached what the girls considered a critical point.”

“Critical how?”

“Once I began speaking with Annika,” said Montauk, “Aimee revealed some details to me.  It seems the girls were selected for their brilliance. Obviously, VanClef has a type.”  He swept a pincer across the blonde crowd.  “And it explains why Annika would have been among those chosen. With a father in prison and no mother in evidence, it was a simple matter to conceal her existence from you. At that point she became the property of the government, to experiment on as they would.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me?” Peyton asked.

“Had it been only my Aimee’s secret,” said the Og, “I may have. But Annika had her own reasons for waiting. I wanted to show her that respect. She has an incredible mind, Peyton. Don’t let her appearance fool you.  She is so much more than a little girl. That is the mistake VanClef made. He and the government underestimated the girls’ ability to learn.”

“Learn what?”

“As smart as the are, the girls came here as infants,” said Montauk. “They had no frame of reference for deception. For violence.”

I’m learning a lot while I’m with you, Daddy. Things I couldn’t learn in school. I’m learning how the world works. I learn just by watching you.

“What deception?” asked Peyton. “What violence?”

“The girls you see here,” said Montauk, “less the ones who escaped and disappeared into Hongkongtown, are only a fraction of the group Annika remembers.  Over time the girls began to put it together. Fail certain tests, score below certain aptitudes, and you disappear, never to be seen again. Over time they developed what I believe is a fairly complex algorithm.  What they concluded was that most of the work needed to free them from the school they could do themselves, here and through their… agents, if you wish to call the escapees that. But they are, after all, only girls. They needed help. They needed someone to trip the defenses, to eliminate the physical resistance they could not overcome. They needed a hammer to drive the final nails.”

“Me.”

“You are quite the hammer,” said Montauk.

“So they were expecting us,” said Peyton.  “That’s what she meant about being on time.”

“So it would seem.”

The girls were now standing in front of the hatchway, watching Peyton, Montauk, and Loran. Peyton beckoned to Annika. She came forward.

“What is it, Daddy?”

“What do we do now, Annika?” said Peyton.  “We can’t just turn these girls out into the street.”

“I can make arrangements for them,” said Montauk.

“Oh, you won’t have to,” said Annika.  “They all know what they need to do.  The ones that want to find their parents can. They’ll be okay.”

Montauk looked at Peyton. Peyton looked at the Og.  They both looked at Annika.  “Are you sure?” asked Peyton.

“Yes, Daddy,” said Annika.  She leaned in, shielding her mouth with her hand.  In a loud stage whisper she said, “They’re all very smart.”

The girls started laughing.  The sound prompted someone on the other side of the hatchway to start banging against the metal door.  Two of the little girls  moved the now unlocked hatch aside, revealing a man in a white lab coat.  His hands had been tied behind his back and his legs were bound with electrical wire.

“That’s Doctor Foster,” said Annika.

“Montauk,” said Peyton, “can you and Loran see the girls out of this neighborhood?”

“Of course,” said the Og.  “Annika can come visit with my children, for that matter. You can pick her up my place when your… business… here is concluded.”

“Oh, that would be fun, Daddy,” said Annika. “May I do that?”

“Yes,” said Peyton.  “I won’t be too long.”

“My son and I shall prepare dinner again, then,” said Montauk.  “Come along, Loran. Girls? If you will join me?”

“See you soon, Daddy,” said Annika.

“Good-bye, Mister Peyton,” said the other girls in unison.  Peyton watched them leave.  When he was satisfied that they were out of the facility, he turned his attention back to Foster.

Foster looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot. He stared in terror.

“Did you work here?” Peyton asked.

“I’m only a consultant,” Foster said quietly.  “One of the workmen injured himself with a power-bore.  I was here to treat him.”

“Did you help test my daughter? Take away the ones that failed the tests?”

“No,” said Foster.  “That wasn’t me.  I had nothing to do with that. That was VanClef.”

“Where is VanClef?” said Peyton.  “I want to talk to him. I want to talk to the man who put my daughter in this place.”

“I dont’ know,” said Foster.  “I really don’t.  Please don’t hurt me. I had nothing to do with your daughter, nothing at all.”

“You knew the girls were here,” said Peyton.  “You knew this facility was secret. You knew they were prisoners.”

“Please,” said Foster.  “I was just doing my job–”

Peyton reached out and grabbed the bound man.  He lifted Foster easily by the neck and ankles, holding him against the ceiling of the underground lab.

“PLEASE!” Foster screamed.  “I can help you! I can give you money.”

“I almost killed my own daughter,” said Peyton.  “Can your money buy that back?”

“You can leave Hongkongtown!” Foster said quickly. “Anything you want! You can go somewhere you and your girl will be safe!”

Peyton looked up at the medical tech.  His eyes narrowed.  He brought up his knee as he let Foster’s body fall.

“There is no safe,” said Peyton, and broke the screaming man in half.

Armor of God Trilogy Available

Chris Carswell’s trilogy of inspirational stories (written by me for League Entertainment and 1Boy4Change.org) is now available from CreateSpace as a paperback. You can buy it here.

“Chris Carswell may be a boy-genius with his own suit of power rescue armor, but even the ability to fly on rocket boots can’t solve everything. From industrial accidents to a super villain named Resistor, Chris faces challenges large and small, all with his service dog, Bronx, by his side. Through it all, he is sustained not by his armor or his own courage, but by his unshakable faith in God.”

Technocracy: Is Chiropractic Technology or Quackery?

My WND Technocracy column this week was inspired by my recent visit to a chiropractor.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 30, “Hur, hur”

 

[image error]The doors have been ripped off the hinges.

There are three sets of doors, set within a security corridor leading to the surface. Each door is thicker than the last. Each door incorporates a series of heavy bolts, within channels on the opposite side, to seal the portal.

These bolts litter the floor, twisted, misshapen.  A few bear oval imprints where giant fingers have pressed them, indented them, crushed them.

The foyer from the surface corridor is a kill box.

A turret firing collapsed-uranium slugs at the rate of 800 rounds per minute has been mounted at the end of the box. Pits concealed in the floor are lined with razor-sharp alloy spikes. The touch of a single button inside a far-away control room can open the pits, fire the gun, turn everything within the box to ground meat in fractions of a second.

The gun has not been fired. The floor pits have not been revealed.  These are electronic mechanisms, controlled remotely by a series of circuits, relays, and digital controls. All have been disabled.

The facility is far underground, fully twenty meters below the dormant factory that conceals it.  It is separated into wings. The wings can be hermetically, hydraulically sealed from each other. This is because the facility was originally designed by the government to develop chemical and biological weapons.  It lay vacant for twenty years before its conversion into a psychological testing facility and, yes, nominally a school.

The doors leading fr0m the kill-box have also been wrenched aside. They are warped, bent, dented. They bear the indentations of enormous knuckles. There are two ways, once beyond the mounted gun, to descend to the active levels of the facility. The stairways have been flooded by a curious plumbing problem, caused by a cascade-failure of the facility’s climate control network.  The lift appears to be functional. A strange computer malfunction has caused the lift not to operate, when called, for the last three days.

It worked today.

On the lower level, the lift doors are open. Two dead men, dressed as security personnel, lie here.  Their guns have been taken. Their bones have been broken. Their skulls have been crushed flat. Their eyes are out.

This hallway leads to an intersection. To left, a wing of the facility has been sealed off from the inside. The secured doors leading to this wing show the signs of extensive work to breach them. A work crew has struggled for days to separate the alloy panels. The doors remain intact. The work crew does not.

It should not be possible to punch a hole through a human being, to dig with blunt force past a man’s ribs, to hollow his chest with a blow and grab his spine through the cavity created. It should not be possible to split a man’s brain by chopping at his skull with the edge of one’s hand. It should not be possible to punch a man so hard his jaw is ripped from his head. It should not be possible to attempt the same punch and succeed in knocking the entire head clear of the neck.  All of these things were, nonetheless, entirely, horribly possible.

The walls of the chamber are crimson. They are so thick with blood that in the years to come, when the facility again lies empty and vacant, the very poured stone of the walls will be permanently stained. The men who died here will remain part of this tunnel until time turns the tunnel itself to dust.

The wrath, the fury, the monster that has invaded these halls is not patient. He is not kind. He is not forgiving. But he is thorough. Before he breaches the sealed chamber, he reverses course, finds the wing of the facility that has not yet been blocked off.  Here, terrified men and women, operatives of the government, cower behind desks and under tables.

Not all of these operatives are wholly “bad” people. All have done bad things, yes. All have been party to the mistreatment of children — children held within this “school,” children taught according to governmental whim, children interrogated and tested and imprisoned, treated as property because that is what they have become. Many of these operatives have known guilt, in considering their work. Many have suffered regrets. None have sought to correct their misdeeds, and it is this failure that has condemned them.

There are wall-mounted robot guns. There are security barriers. There are electricity fields. None of the automated systems are operable. None of the manually activated systems have activated. It is as if the very machines have turned against the occupants of this government laboratory.

Here, a woman in a lab coat no longer wears her head. There, a man similarly dressed has had his arms and legs ripped free. The expression on the dead man’s face is one of surprise, one of incredulity, one of pain. The dead man has seen terrible things. Terrible things have been done to him. No one in the laboratory has escaped.

The floors are awash in blood and human organs. A severed hand lies on a table; it still holds a pen. An eyeball stares from the center of a desk. A man with a crushed skull flails from amid a puddle of his own blood, trying to move his feet. He makes a noise that sounds like, “Hur, hur.” The last words he chose to speak were, “Why? Why?”

The question of why has been asked by more than one victim of this bloody rampage. It has not been acknowledged; it has not been dignified. A vessel of wrath has visited punishment on the facility’s occupants. That vessel is not receptive to negotiation, to explanation, to pleas for mercy or suggestions of dialogue.

That vessel leaves heavy boot prints in an ocean of blood when it finally approaches, once more, the sealed doors leading to the wing it has not visited.  It flexes its arms. It balls its mighty fists, each the size of a basketball. It rears back its right hand, ready to begin battering down the barrier, knowing that in only minutes it can do what the work crew could not do in weeks.  These doors cannot stop it. It will rip them apart. It draws in a deep breath–

A buzzer sounds. A green light winks alive on the wall.

The doors open on smooth hydraulics, never touched by the monster that walks through them.

Technocracy: The Tablet Revolution (Resistance is Futile)

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the increasingly pervasive touch-tablet technology that is changing our lives.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 29, “The Factory”

 

Peyton shook his head. “This can’t be it,” he said. “These are closed factories. There are no schools here, Annika.”

“It’s there, Daddy,” she said.  “That one.” Annika pointed to the factory in the center of the cul de sac.

“I don’t understand,” said Peyton.

“It’s in there,” Annika insisted. “But there’s going to be a problem.”

“What?” Peyton asked.

“I don’t see any of the Sleepers,” she said. “We should have seen them by now. That means somebody came and made them go away.”

“There were Sleepers here?” asked Peyton.  His hand fell to the butt of the sawed-off shotgun in his belt.

“People don’t understand the Sleepers,” said Annika.  “Not as well as they should. When they claim a territory, that group becomes a pack. The pack has weak members.  The weakest ones stay hidden so they can dream.”

“How do you–” Peyton started.

Something scraped across the pavement behind them.  Peyton turned.  He watched as a man with milk-white skin crawled from beneath a stripped, burned-out automobile frame.

“When they get desperate,” said Annika, “the weak ones get very strong. Very fast. Most people don’t know about this stage. Only people who live on the streets of Hongkongtown have seen them, and many of them are killed by the Sleepers.”

A sewer cover shifted in its receptacle.  It grated against the paving as something beneath it pushed it aside.

“Annika,” said Peyton.  “Get ready to run.”

“No, Daddy,” she said.  “If I run they’ll find me. Faster than you can stop them.”

Peyton drew the shotgun from his belt.  “When I was blind,” he said.  “When I was blind, and the police came. Do you remember how we worked together?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“We have to do that now. Hurry.”

The sound of glass breaking reached their ears.  A metal barrel was thrown from one side of the street to the other. The sound of unseen fists hammering shipping containers filled the cul de sac.

Peyton knelt.  He felt Annika’s fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt beneath his enormous overcoat.  She climbed him like a tree, hooking her arms around his neck, positioning herself next to his left ear the way she had done when she acted as his eyes.

“Annika,” he said.  “Am I stronger than them?”

“One of them,” she said. “Five of them. Ten of them. More than that… I’m not sure, Daddy. Montauk says their teeth have–”

“Montauk?” he asked. The Sleepers came out of the darkness, first one at a time, then in twos and threes.  “Don’t let go,” he whispered to her. “Stay behind me no matter what.”

The addicts formed a knot in the street before them.  Peyton backed up a pace. The shotgun held only two shells. He had more in his pocket, but reloading would be slow.

“They won’t feel it if you hurt them,” whispered Annika in his ear.  “Some of them are missing arms and legs already. A few have started to eat themselves.”

She was right.  The Sleepers were pale as albinos. A few were missing at least one eye; others had yawning sockets where both had been. The ones missing legs crawled and hobbled as best they could. Those with only stumps for arms still had teeth.  The marks of their own bites were visible in their ashen flesh.

“They must be so lonely,” Annika said.  “When they others got taken away, these were left to rot in their hiding spots.”

“Shotgun shells in my pocket,” said Peyton. “Get ready to reload for me.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

The Sleepers charged. Peyton held himself low, waiting for them to get close enough.  When the first of the creatures came within arm’s reach, he grabbed it by the neck, lifted, threw it aside.  The next one he shot in the face. The Sleeper behind that one took a blast to the throat.

“Take the gun!” Peyton shouted. He handed the gun up to Annika.

They were on top of him now.  Peyton balled his fists and began smashing them. He shattered jaws. He broke ribs. He burst dessicated organs. The Sleepers kept coming.

Peyton snapped legs. He ripped arms free from their sockets. He crushed skulls, pulped brains. He broke knees, ankles, pelvises. The Sleepers kept coming.

Annika handed down the shotgun. He blasted an addict in the face, spun, shot another one in the heart. He handed up the weapon and shoved his fist completely through a Sleepers’ chest, feeling air on his bloody fingers. The Sleepers kept coming.

He began cutting arcs in the air with his fists.  He felt their crumbling skin against his knuckles as he smashed them, toppled them, battered them. Annika gave him the shotgun once more. He shoved the barrels into the mouth of the nearest addict and pulled both triggers, blowing the creature’s head apart, cleaving the face of the Sleeper behind it.

The Sleepers kept coming.

“There are so many,” he heard Annika say.

She reloaded for him. He fired the weapon twice, broke it, handed it up. He punched a Sleeper in the neck, rammed his rigid fingers through the eyes of another, clapped his hands and crushed the skull of a third. The shotgun appeared in the air by his ear. He reached up, grabbed it, fired both barrels with one hand.  The Sleepers kept coming, and now they were driving him back, pushing him into the vee formed by a pair of abandoned shipping containers that stood corner to corner.  Peyton risked a glance back as he handed Annika the gun. The steel walls of the containers were stained red with blood and orange with corrosion. The Sleepers had used this corner before. He was being herded into a trap, funneled into a dead end. They would swarm him and–

Annika screamed.

She dropped the shotgun. Peyton saw it fall. It was trampled by the Sleepers still pushing him back.

“Daddy!” she shouted. “Daddy, I’m sorry!”

The barrels. He cursed himself, cursed his stupidity. The barrels had grown hot. He barely noticed through his thick skin. She had burned herself.

He started to reach up, to put his hand on his daughter, to assure her that it was all right, that they would be okay without the weapon. He felt it, then: one of the addicts had sunk its teeth into the flesh of his arm. A jolt like electrity traveled up his arm, seizing his shoulder, making his arm go dead. He roared in surprise and smashed the addict with his other hand, breaking open the Sleeper’s face and sending its teeth flying.

He continued to back up. He started kicking, low to crack their knees, lower to break their ankles.  The ones whose limbs he snapped started to drag themselves along with their rotting arms and stumps. He fought with his good arm, throwing vicious hooks and uppercuts, breaking and smashing and destroying.

Pain. He looked down. One of the Sleepers had bitten him in the thigh.  He grabbed the top of its skull and ripped its head off, throwing the head, kicking the body aside. He was too late. The electric shock spread through his leg. He felt the limb go rubbery.

“Daddy!” Annika screamed.

Peyton fell to one knee.  Annika’s back was now pressing against the steel vee of the containers. They had nowhere to go.

He began swinging his good arm in wide arcs, using his fist like a morning star, smashing the crowd of rotting Sleepers as he swayed from left to right.  This tactic worked for a little while.  He managed to keep them at bay until they started coming at him from above and below, jumping over the level of his fist while others crawled along the ground beneath it.  He met the leapers, striking them down, but he felt ashen fingers brushing his good leg.  They were getting through. They were going to swamp him. He could not stop them all.

Annika made a sound in his ear. It was not a word. It was fear.

The image of Annika at the mercy of these creatures, torn apart, eaten alive, blossomed in his mind.

No. Not like that.

He reached up with his good arm.  He wrapped his fingers gently around her, feeling the pulse in her neck, feeling her hair against his palm.

“Daddy?”

“Close your eyes, Annika,” he said.

“I… I love you, Daddy.”

A pneumatic hiss filled the air.  Peyton’s eyes widened.  The Sleepers crawling toward him were torn apart, blown to bits only inches away. Each shot raised a cloud of dried flesh.  The shooting intensified.  A pair of figures wearing hooded cloaks began to close from the opposite side of the mob.  They held belt-fed bolt guns, powered by cylinders of compressed air. The guns trailed long sleeves of conical bullets.

“Get down!” said Montauk. His voice was electronically amplified.

Peyton curled his arm and clutched Annika to his chest.  He dropped to knee and elbow on the pavement, shielding her with his body, making himself as flat as he could. The bolt guns opened up on full automatic, filling the air above his back with searing projectiles.

The shooting stopped.

Peyton waited. He held Annika to his body, afraid to move, unable to stand, knowing only that while she was protected by his body, she could not be harmed.

“Daddy,” she said quietly.

“What, Annika?”

“Your squishing me.”

“It’s all right,” said Montauk.  The Og moved to stand over them, holding the bolt gun with its barrel pointed to the sky.  The other hooded figure stood a pace behind him. Peyton could not see its face clearly, but it was obviously another Og, more machine than man.

“It’s you,” said Peyton.

“That’s my line,” it said.  “Don’t try to stand, Peyton.  Your knee will give out. Give me a moment, please.”

The Og took a pair of contact pods from its cloak and held them out to Peyton. Peyton stared at the half-spheres, each the size of an eyeball.

“What?” Peyton asked.

“Lick them, please,” it said. “The flat side.”

Peyton did so, feeling foolish.  Montauk placed one of the spheres against Peyton’s thigh and the other on his arm.  “The bleeding doesn’t look too bad,” said the Og.  “I don’t think we’ll need to do anything there. Your own endocrine system should take care of any mundane infection these things had to offer.”

A feeling like standing on pins and needles began to  spread through Peyton’s numbed arm and leg.  “What did you do to me?” he asked.

“It is what I undid, actually,” said Montauk. “When a Sleeper reaches this final stage, his blood and his saliva are laced with the drug.  More accurately, it is a drug byproduct — Sleep distilled, robbed of its narcotic and hallucinogenic effects, replaced by a Sleep-derived neurotoxin that paralyzes muscle tissue. The effects would have worn off quickly enough, but the stimulants I’ve given you will counteract the fatigue this causes.  You should be able to stand now.”

Peyton stood. He wobbled a little, but his arm and leg were already starting to feel normal. He flexed his arm and ran a finger across the bite mark. It was scabbing over.

Annika scrambled to her feet and leaned against one of his legs.  Around them, the dead Sleepers — the ones Peyton had not pulled apart — had been shot to ribbons.

Peyton looked at Montauk.  “How?” he said.

“I must admit,” said Montauk, “that your daughter and I have been in close communication for some time. But you did not give us much warning of this adventure. We barely made it here in time.”

“You’ve been talking through the computer,” said Peyton.  He looked to the sleeve tab on Annika’s arm.

“Yes,” said Montauk.  “Once I had her unit’s serial number it was easy for us to stay in touch.  She told me just before you departed that you were both coming here.  I warned her about the Sleepers and arranged to be here with support when you arrived. There was every likelihood you would need help to make it past these leftovers. They’re more dangerous than the main pack.”

“But why?” Peyton asked. “What is your involvement here? And why didn’t you or Annika tell me?”

“It is complicated,” said Montauk. “But I assure you, Peyton, that none of my secrets are held to harm you. Mine is a difficult world. As for why I am helping you and will continue to do so, this is an act of friendship.”

The other Og had found Peyton’s fallen shotgun. It offered the weapon without a word. Peyton took it.

“This is more than friendship,” said Peyton to Montauk. “Tell me it’s not.”

Montauk paused.  It took a step closer and placed one pincer on Peyton’s arm.  Peyton looked down at the metal digits and back into the Og’s camera eyes.  “You can trust me,” said Montauk. “Not only because we’re friends. But because helping you is an investment in my future.”

“I don’t understand,” said Peyton.

“Now’s not the time or place to explain further,” said Montauk. “But you will have your answers.”  It gestured to his fellow Og. “This is Loran. Another friend. His voxbox is new and not yet initialized; he cannot speak. But he is thinking complimentary things, I assure you.”

The other Og nodded. A servo in its neck whined.

“Loran has been keeping this location under surveillance for me,” said Montauk.  “Two days ago he witnessed a pair of men blunder into the area. They were attacked by the main pack of Sleepers and shot many of them. The remainder of the main pack were rounded up by government troops last night, leaving only these stragglers.”  He spread his metal arms.  “But that is not what is important.”

“What is?” Peyton asked.

“The two men who nearly lost their lives investigating this location,” said Montauk. “They are an Inspector Neiring and a Detective Moxley. These men are looking into your case, Peyton. They are hunting you. And that means they have found Annika’s school.”

“What school?” Peyton demanded. “What school is this? This is a factory!”

“Please, friend Peyton,” said Montauk, bowing its head. “Allow me to show you. Or perhaps more accurately, allow Annika to show you.”

“He’s right, Daddy,” said Annika.

“All right,” said Peyton.  “All right. But I still don’t understand.”  He broke the shotgun, reloaded it, snapped it shut, and tucked it in his belt.  Kneeling next to Annika, he said, “Are your hands all right?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said.  “My fingers are a little red, but not too bad.”

With Loran bringing up the rear, watchful with his bolt gun, Annika led her father and the two Ogs to the side of the factory building.  “We always used the tunnels,” she said.  “But they taught us how to get back in from the surface if there was ever an emergency.”

“They simply failed to mention the habituated pack of ravening drug addicts they had encouraged to take up residence in the neighborhood,” said Montauk.

Peyton looked at the Og. Montauk looked back, his metal mask unreadable.

Annika pressed a series of bricks in the molded facade of the factory.  Something clicked inside the wall. The facade parted, revealing a pneumatic door. This opened silently.

Checking her pocket watch, Annika smiled and closed the lid.

“What is it, Annika?” said Peyton.

“We’re right on time,” she said.  She started to take a step forward, but Peyton stopped her with his hand.

“No,” he said.

Montauk motioned to Loran. Loran took up a sentry position by the door.  Montauk said to Peyton, “I will guard your daughter with my life.”

Peyton put his massive hands together and cracked his knuckles.

Close your eyes, Annika.

That close. He had come that close to losing her. And by his own hand. Through his own failure.

“Daddy?” asked Annika. “You’re all red. Are you okay?”

Montauk moved her gently out of Peyton’s way.  “Your father has some things he needs to fix, my dear.”

“Or some people,” said Annika.

“Just so,” said Montauk.

“Wait here until I’m finished,” Peyton rumbled.

“How will we know?” asked the Og.

“The screaming will stop,” said Peyton.

Technocracy — ‘JerkTech’: Is It Free Market or Theft?

My WND Technocracy column this week was inspired by a pair of new startups in San Francisco.

The owners of start-ups like MonkeyParking and ReservationHop argue that they are capitalist entrepreneurs, offering “disruptive” solutions to inefficient business models.

In early July, these “JerkTech” apps both outraged the public by co-opting both public and private property.  The question these obnoxious apps beg is, “is this the action of the free market, or is it simply stealing?”

I argue that it is the latter, at least in these two cases.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Episode 28, “Discretion”

 

“Is this all of them?” VanClef asked, peering through the one-way pane.  From the other side it was a mirror. From this side, it was an observation port, set high above the open space of a converted warehouse in the Redlight.

“As many as we could round up, sir,” said Bridger. “Two dozen, less the one who died in the truck on the way over. An allergic reaction to the stimulants.”

VanClef nodded.  He had come to expect concise reports. Bridger was a competent agent, in VanClef’s mind. Certainly he boasted a better service record than Temken’s. He was healthy, toned, even tan, with perfect hair and perfect teeth — in every way Temken’s opposite. Why, then, did he seem so dull? VanClef surprised himself. He had not expected Temken’s loss to affect him.

No matter. Having an assistant allowed him to delegate certain tasks, freeing him to devote his attention elsewhere. Agent Bridger was therefore a necessary tedium.

“You administered the dosage I instructed?” VanClef asked.

“I did,” said Bridger. “We’ve also left a pallet of unwrapped rations in the center of the warehouse. I assume this has something to do with their post-addiction proclivities? The stimulants will obviously make them stronger, amplifying their already considerable danger and making them more challenging foes. The food is therefore the motivator?”

“Correct,” said VanClef.  “When they reach a certain stage of addiction, Sleepers cease to be what we think of as people. It is as if the drug has burned away anything you or I might consider… human. In certain parts of Hongkongtown they run in packs like wild animals. The locals quickly learn to avoid the areas these gangs of Sleepers claim as their dens. Until they begin to lose appendages from the drug, the amplified speed and strength it gives them, the complete numbness to pain it confers, makes them extremely dangerous.”

Bridger was a transfer from the mainland; Sleepers were a new phenomenon to him.  “You were using a pack of Sleepers to guard the factory,” he said.

“Yes,” said VanClef.  “The most dangerous thing you can do is feed a Sleeper in the final, feral stages of the drug. He becomes habituated, much like a… a bear, or some other wild animal. Even the smallest child in Hongkongtown knows not to give a beggar food. It is never worth the risk.”

“Which is why we use the tunnels to enter and leave the facility,” said Bridger.

“Exactly,” said VanClef.  “Early in Hongkongtown’s history, when the opiate trade built the city and the Triads grew to prominence, it was common practice to use vicious dogs to guard one’s stashed fortunes and stockpiled drugs. You simply locked the animal or animals in the area to be secured.”

“That’s logical,” said Bridger. “No one would think of a pack of Sleepers as a security system, but they would discourage unauthorized personnel.”

“Unfortunately,” said VanClef, “I did not anticipate the interference of determined meddlers such as Raymond Neiring and Harold Moxley.  Have you pulled their files?”

“I have,” said Bridger.  “There’s nothing Intelligence knows about them that I don’t.”

“Good.”  VanClef allowed himself a moment’s satisfaction. Perhaps, in his disappointment over losing Temken, he had been unkind to consider Agent Bridger boring.  “See to it that appropriate arrangements are made.”

“Yes, sir.”  Bridger put two fingers to the transceiver in his ear.  “They’re ready for your downstairs, sir.”

“Good,” said VanClef.  “Tell them to send in the Sleepers first.”

Bridger did so.  He tapped his transceiver again and said, “Sir. I’m curious about something.”

“And that is?

“Why round up the survivors?” said Bridger.  “I understand wanting to eliminate any possible links, however tenuous, to Intelligence. But why not simply cleanse the Sleepers Moxley and Neiring didn’t kill? Why use them for this test?”

“Waste not, Agent Bridger,” said VanClef. “Waste not.”

On the warehouse floor below, a door opened in the East wall.  The pack of Sleepers came running out of it. They gestured wildly, pulling at their rags and at the flesh of their fellows, none of them managing so much as a moan.  VanClef was impressed. These Sleepers moved with real purpose.  They made immediately for the food, falling on it and tearing into it.

“Unleash the test subjects,” said VanClef.

Bridger made the order.  On the West wall, another set of doors opened.  It took a moment for any movement to register.

Three men came lumbering out.

VanClef watched through the observation port.  Every one of them was hypertrophic. The largest of them was as big as Ian Peyton, while the other two were not much smaller.  They held themselves low to the ground, centered, ready to strike. VanClef marveled at the easy familiarity they shared.  This was not the first time these three had stalked and killed as a group. VanClef had been testing them for weeks. Their progress was remarkable.

“Who are they, sir?” asked Bridger.

“The alpha we call Big Bill,” said VanClef.  “The other two are Perry and Mulligan. All three were in cold storage until a month ago.  That’s when I realized they might be useful.”

The Sleepers had noticed the oncoming trio. The addicts fanned out to protect their new territory, placing themselves between the three huge men and the rations.  It was not the food the newcomers wanted, however. They had their orders. This was not their first time in VanClef’s makeshift arena.

“But where did they come from?” asked Bridger.

“They’re stepping stones,” said VanClef.  “Each one got us closer to the specific set of procedures that would produce Peyton.”

The giant men tore into the Sleepers. VanClef watched in amazement.  A heavily armed tactical team, even a military unit, would have been hard pressed to fight off the addicts. The Sleepers were vicious, they were mindless, and they felt neither pain nor fear. The amphetamines coursing through their bodies made them stronger and faster still. None of that mattered. The Sleepers were torn limb from limb.

Bridger turned away, looking nauseous.  He went to the wall screen and began calling up files on the three subjects. This pleased VanClef.  The man might be horrified at what he had just seen, but he was determined to be useful.  Bridger was definitely an improvement on Temken.

“Big Bill’s medical statistics are identical to Peyton’s,” said Bridger.  “If anything, his projections are better.”

“Yes,” said VanClef.  “But he had certain psychological deficiencies that caused us to drop him from the program.”  He turned away from the window. The carnage below was almost over.  “These three are almost ready,” he said.  “I have a few more drills I’d like to run them through. In the meantime, I want you to organize a tactical team and put them on standby.”

“We’re still having trouble acquiring the Peytons. Surveillance thinks maybe someone’s slipped a malicious algorithm into the system that’s fouling the screening process.  We’re getting one percent of the hits we should be getting.”

“But we are getting hits,” said VanClef.  “Hongkongtown is large, but its territory is finite. Sooner or later we will find them, just as we did before. And when we do I want to be ready to move on them with all possible firepower.”

Bridger examined the wall screen, where Big Bill’s image was captioned with his birth name: Stillwater, William.

“What about Big Bill and his friends?” asked Bridger.  “If I and my team take the Peytons the next time they surface, you’ll have trained your preliminary subjects for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” said VanClef. “They are a fall-back. One that I feel it is only prudent to have, but an option I would rather not use. I had the surviving Sleepers eliminated for the same reason.”

“Sir?”

“Discretion, Bridger,” said VanClef. “Discretion. We have enough problems to resolve at the school; I would rather not bring any more attention to Project Violet than is absolutely necessary. “

Technocracy: When Porn Stars Call Others ‘Disgusting’

My WND Technocracy column this week is a look at the double standard conservatives and libertarians face online.

Sport hunting is legal. So is having sex for money on camera.

Read the full column here in WND News.