Phil Elmore's Blog, page 33

CORRUPTION: A Marshal Boothe Tale of Justice

CORRUPTION is nothing more or less than a science fiction Western, complete with lonely showdowns and vengeful villains.  It’s much more than that, however.  This is a novella with an eye for the emotional turmoil of its protagonist.  Marshal Jayson Boothe could easily be a cookie-cutter tough guy with a badge and a gun.  Instead he is a thoughtful family man who isn’t at all pleased about the position in which he finds himself… but whose sense of justice will not allow him to accept a corrupt system that victimizes the innocent.  He does the right thing, even though it may cost him, and he’s got a LOT to lose.

The novella is a tie in to the full-length science fiction novel SIMON VECTOR.  Boothe appears very briefly in that novel, although his appearance is really just a cameo.  CORRUPTION explains how Boothe came to be where we find him in SIMON VECTOR, but you don’t need to have read the full-length novel to read the novella (or vice versa).

CORRUPTION also takes place on the same Martian colony, and during the same time period, that League Entertainment’s CORRECTION novella takes place.  The feel and the mood of the two stories are very different.  CORRECTION is a horror story, whose central character is a mentally deranged serial killer.  CORRUPTION is an action-adventure tale with deliberate Western themes, whose protagonist is as righteous a man as you could want.

There is a thematic tie between the two stories, however, in that Boothe is hunting a DIFFERENT serial killer.  Mars is a frontier world, in some ways a very backwards place, and seems to have no shortage of human predators.  When Boothe realizes that the Powers That Are have conspired to set his prey free to kill again, he confesses to the crimes — and proceeds to bring his own brand of justice to the Martian landscape.

This story is a lot of fun.  Highly recommended.

CORRUPTION is free on Goodreads until midnight, 25 September, 2012.

Technocracy: Liberals and Muslims, Please Shut Up!

My WND Technocracy column may seem particularly harsh this week, but it addresses a pair of problems that are inextricably intertwined.

[Obama's voters] are like children begging treats from an indifferent father.

Whether you’re part of the problem from within our society — as political correctness saps our resolve, our will to live, our willingness to defend ourselves — or one of myriad enemies who wish to destroy us, you have something in common with your counterparts:

You need to shut the hell up and let right-thinking people solve society’s problems while defending individual liberties.

Read the full column here in WND.

“Doomed”

Illustration by Johnny “Atomic” Jackson

“I want a cigarette.”

“Shut up and hold the door,” said Justin.

Grumbling, Richard hurried to get in front of the cart.  Using the transponder card he had not returned after his day shift, he unlocked the rusted fire door and hauled it open.  Justin swore repeatedly as he muscled the cart up over the lip of the ramp and through the opening.  He scraped the sides as he pushed.

“Stop, stop,” Richard urged.  “Somebody will hear!”

“Just help me with this,” said Justin.  “Remember, it’s C11.”

“C11,” repeated Richard.  “I remember.  Don’t turn on the lights!”

Justin glared, but pulled his hand back; he had been reaching for the wall switch.  From the pocket of his windbreaker he produced a flashlight.

“Come on,” he said.

They passed locker after locker.  The temperature-controlled storage areas were cold.  Clouds of their breath followed the two men.  Richard clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering.

“They’re going to know on Monday,” said Richard.  “I’m going to get fired.  Or arrested.  Or arrested and fired.”

“Only if you’re stupid enough to stay in town,” said Justin.  “Me, I’m going to Vegas.”

“You really think we’ll get that much?”

Justin said nothing.  He had found unit C11.  In the beam of his flashlight he picked out the padlock on the door.  “Do you have the keys for this?”

“No,” said Richard.

Justin looked around.  He pointed to the metal chair at the end of the corridor.  It was the chair in which Richard had spent the day shift; he was still wearing his uniform.  The security company that employed him would know his keycard had been used to gain entrance to the facility.  He was risking a lot.  Briefly, he considered backing out.

“Well?” Justin said.

Richard brought the chair.  Justin lifted it and tried his best to smash the lock from the door.  When he failed, Richard took a turn.  Both men were sweating and breathing heavily when finally they opened the locker.

The crates were the size of coffins.  They reached to the ceiling of the unit.  Each was labeled, “LATVERIA.”

A prybar rested atop the nearest crate.  Justin picked it up and, without difficulty, lifted the lid from one of the boxes.  He reached inside.

“Is it…?”

Justin tensed.  Richard could see it in the man’s shoulder blades.  Something was wrong.

“It’s empty.”

Richard rushed forward.  He snatched the flashlight, ignoring the anger that flashed across Justin’s face.  Playing the beam inside the crate, he saw what Justin had:  nothing.

“You said there would be gold!  Bars of Latverian gold, you said!”

“That’s what the news said!” Justin looked inside once more, then turned to glare at Richard.  “The revolution in Latveria has anyone with money running scared and shipping their wealth out of the country.  You’re the one that told me the crates were here.  You said they were heavy.  Heavy as in full of gold.”

“I said the last crate they pushed in here looked heavy,” said Richard.  “It took four guys just to move it.”

“Well?” said Justin.  “Which one was it?”

Richard pointed.  “That one.”

“Come on then.”  Justin wedged the prybar under the lid and pulled.

Nothing happened.

He let the prybar support his weight, and still the crate did not budge.  Hanging from the bar, sweat streaming down his cheeks, he looked up at Richard and almost snarled.  “Well, help me, stupid!”

Even with both of them on the bar, they could not open the crate.  Finally, Justin pointed to the cart.  “We can’t keep doing this. It’s welded or something. We’ll bring the whole thing.”

The crate was as heavy as it had looked.  Richard used the prybar as a lever to raise the lip of the crate onto the cart.  Then the two of them jockeyed it side to side until it rested on the platform.  By the time their burden was secure in the back of Justin’s van, they were pushing the clock.  The night guard was arriving as they pulled away from the curb.  Richard hoped the man — it was either Lee or Stan, but he couldn’t tell which — wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t think to take down their plates.

“You look like somebody shot your dog,” Justin said from the driver’s seat.  “Cheer the hell up.  We’re rich, little brother.”

 

* * *

 

“Victor.  Are you certain?”

“You are my most trusted lieutenant, Pimsleur.  You have never failed me.  Do not start questioning me now.”

Beyond the metal slits in the mask, Pimsleur’s wrinkled face appeared to crease further in concern.  “The revolution may burn itself out.  Your reign may yet survive.”

“You are not a fool,” said the man behind the mask.  “Do not speak like one.  Most of the palace guard have fallen. The populists have won.  They will breach this stronghold and they will murder us.  It does not matter how many I slay with the energies left to me.  I cannot destroy them all.”

Pimsleur paused, as if considering that.  Finally, he said, “You have made arrangements?”

“Of course.  The mask contains my… psychic resonance, if you will.  It will exert the necessary influence.  The route to be traveled, the disposition of the crate, the integrity of the seals and rivets for the proper length of time.  All of this can be ensured.  I can even see to it that the crate is discovered by someone suitable.”

“Very well.  I will do as you ask, Victor.  And then I will flee this place like a common criminal.  But you must order me.  It would feel disrespectful otherwise.”

“I am Doom,” said the main in the mask, “and I order you to kill me.”

 

* * *

Richard opened his eyes.  His neck hurt.  He had fallen asleep leaning against the wall of his own refrigerator.

What a strange dream, he thought.

It had taken hours to rip open the crate, rivet by rivet.  He and Justin had worked in shifts.  He must have nodded off while it was Justin’s turn.

Now his brother was standing over the crate beneath the open lid, staring inside.

“You… you did it?  You got it open?”

“Empty? How in the hell can it be empty?”

Richard hurried over. The create was layered in moldy straw.  He reached in, feeling for something, anything.  But there were no gold bars.  There were no coins.  There was only—

“What’s this?” said Richard.  He held up the metal gauntlet.  “Maybe it’s an antique?”

Justin slapped it out of his hand.  The glove thunked on the stained carpet of Richard’s efficiency, drawing a muffled but angry shout from the apartment below.

“Do I look like a frigging art dealer to you?” Justin demanded.  He reached into the crate and pulled a faceplate from it.  The skull-like mask, its eyes rectangular slits, seemed to frown at both men.

Whatever the corroded old costume was, it was probably valuable.  Justin couldn’t see that.  Richard knew his brother well enough to understand that Justin thought only of immediate gains.  They had worked all night to pry open the crate. The disappointment was just too much for his brother.

“I’m the one who’s going to have to leave town,” said Richard.  “Did you even think about that?  I gave up my job for nothing.”

“Like it matters,” said Justin.  “What were you gonna do, work your way up to manager?  It’s a dead end job for a dead end guy.  You’re a loser, Rich.  You always were.”

Richard, who had bent to pick up the glove, froze on his knees.  Without turning to look at his brother, he said, “What did you call me?”

“I said you’re a loser,” Justin said.  “It’s your fault we wasted all this time.  You’re always wasting my time, little brother.  You were never good for any—”

Richard rose, turned, and clapped his hand on Justin’s shoulder.

He was wearing the metal gauntlet.

Justin shrieked.  His lips peeled back from his face, baring his teeth.  His eyes rolled into the back of his head.  White smoke wreathed his skull as his hair began to shrivel.  The column of heat that rose from Justin’s body seemed to pour from his neck and chest, making him convulse and shrivel, cracking his skin and boiling his eyes within their sockets.  As the flesh peeled from his cheeks and his dying scream became a gurgle, Justin finally collapsed on withered legs.

Richard stood completely still, his arm extended, the Latverian gauntlet held before him with its fingers splayed.

Power!  So much power!  He had never felt anything like it.  The glove moved as if pulling him by the arm, willing him to the crate, urging him to remove the rest of the costume.  He picked out the second glove, pulled it on, and now his hands flew, assembling the costume within.  The armor was a perfect fit, as if molded to his body.  The strangeness of it did not touch him.

Carrying the face plate in one hand, wearing the musty hooded cape over his shoulders, he stepped over the shriveled corpse of his brother.

Justin, he had time to think.  I’m sorry.

“Are you?” said a voice in his head.  It was a sonorous baritone, rich and lilting.

“Am I what?” he heard himself say.

“Sorry,” said the voice.  “He was never kind to you.”

“No,” said Richard.  “He wasn’t.”

“And he wasn’t very smart.”

“No,” said Richard.  “He wasn’t.”

“You didn’t like him very much,” said the voice.

“No,” said Richard.  “I didn’t.”

The voice did not speak again.  Richard reached for the door.  It exploded beneath his gauntlet, turning to splinters that pocked the opposite side of the hall without.  He strode through the ruined door and made for the stairs, hearing the ringing of the iron-shod boots he now wore.

With each stride his gait became more confident, his shoulders rolling with an arrogance he had never before possessed.  He could feel the weight of the armor, feel the strength it gave him, feel the intoxicating energy that some part of him knew could only be the life, the soul, pulled from his brother’s body.

I didn’t like him very much, Richard thought.  In fact, I hated him.

At the street level he did not even bother to reach for the glass entryway doors.  The panes shattered at his approach, spraying pedestrians outside with razor shards.  A woman screamed.  Something about it struck Richard as funny.

He laughed.  The laugh was not his.  It was deep and full and genuinely amused.

He felt the police cars before he saw them.  Whether they were coming to arrest him for the burglary at the storage unit, or responding to the disturbance within the building, he neither knew nor cared.  He raised his arm once more.  The words of the ancient curse came to his lips unbidden.

Lightning shot from his metal fingertips.  The hoods of the cars were ripped in two, spraying pieces of engine through the windshields and into the spectators on the sidewalk.  Blood flowed.  Richard pushed with his mind and the lightning intensified, melting the policemen in their seats, turning them to liquid and then to fire.

Smoke filled his nostrils.  Ash peppered his face.  He walked to the nearest of the burning cars, his steps long and unhurried, and thrust the skull-mask into the flames, feeling it grow hot through the metal of his glove.

What are you doing? he heard himself ask.  Justin!  Justin!

“Justin,” he said aloud, “is dead.”  He brought the burning mask to his face.

Stop!  Stop!  Don’t do that!

“Richard,” he said, tasting the bitter name for the last time, “is also dead.”  He pressed the hot mask to his skull, feeling his skin crisp beneath it.

No!  No!  Not like this!  I’m Richard!  I’m Richard!  I’m not you!  I’m—

He pulled the hood of his cape over his head.  The voice of rebellion, outraged thoughts of a personality now crushed and swatted aside, dwindled to nothing.

“I,” he said, “am Doom.”

He marched off down the street, feeling the power crackle in his fists, ready to destroy anyone and anything that barred his way.

 

 

 

Technocracy: 9/11 ‘Truthers’ Are Reprehensible

My WND Technocracy column today is a follow-up to my earlier post about the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

[Every conspiracy theory] is an attempt to describe the world in terms that are both simpler and more interesting than real life proves to be.

On September 11th I think I must have deleted at least four or five Facebook friends who believe our own government or some Jewish conspiracy destroyed the Twin Towers.  I am generally a patient person, but I have no tolerance for such disrespectful idiocy.

Read the full column  here in WND.

 

 

 

 

Eleven Years Later

Eleven years ago, at 0900 EST, I was sitting in an office at my computer.  I was a technical writer.  I had a lot of work to do.

Few of us understood then that Islam is at war with the modern world. Its adherents had already tried once to destroy the World Trade Center, but at the time we simply didn’t understand the threat.  We didn’t give it the weight it deserves.  It didn’t occupy the prominent space in our concerns, in our day-to-day thoughts, that it does now.

No matter how much we may dislike our fellow Americans, the enemy truly is out THERE.  There is an entire society, arguably the majority of one of the world’s major religions, that hates the West and its traditions of liberty.  Free societies, to Muslim terrorists, are places of hedonism and evil, offenses against the deity they worship.  These vile cultists feel completely justified — and indeed compelled — to murder those who do not share their faith and will not abide by their restrictions.

There are people, even friends of mine, who believe September 11, 2001 was a government conspiracy.  If you are one of them, please understand that while I still cherish your friendship, I grieve for the disrespectful and foolish misconception you have embraced.  There is no reason for us to discuss it.  There is nothing that can be done.

I am tempted to say that I miss the world that was.  That would be a lie.  What I miss is the luxury of not caring.  I miss the bliss of ignorance.  There was a time when we thought we could afford to ignore this danger.  I miss that.  I miss eleven years and one day ago.

On September 11, 2001, I left the office early and went home carrying a stack of folders.  In those folders was work that seemed important at the time.  Today I could not tell you what was written on those pages.

Today, I will spend the day sitting at my computer.  I am a technical writer.

I have a lot of work to do.

 

 

Technocracy: Get This Weapon Before Obama Bans It!

My WND Technocracy column this week is about two things: Democrats’ hatred of weapons, and one very simple weapon you really need to acquire now, while there’s still time.

Democrats believe the government owns you. Any attempt by you to defend your person is therefore an affront to their possession of your person.

As the libs get more frenzied with the approach of the elections in November, we’re going to see more violence targeting conservatives (and any dissenters who oppose Obama).  The pocket stick is a simple tool that anyone can purchase or make.  Get one today.

Read the full column here in WND.

Technocracy: Don’t Blame Social Media — Blame Yourself

My WND Technocracy column this week isn’t just about pervasive social media.  It’s about our reaction to it, and whether we permit to control our lives and emotions.

Have we forgotten that there is a human being on each end of every data transfer?

The fact is that YOU have the power to control your use of the Internet in general and social media sites specifically.  If you’re not taking control of the Web and making your sites work for you, you lack maturity and you need to reevaluate the time you spend online.

Read the full column here in WND.

The Internet is for Adults

Recently, a fellow who is also a member of my online discussion forum, http://www.paxbaculum.com , and who previously sent me a very expensive gift simply because he’s a generous guy, unfriended me.  He did so because I dared to say, and to write in my WND column, that I do not support gay marriage.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/liberals-rape-of-constitution/

Well, I don’t.

Now, if you’re one of my friends and you happen to be gay — there are more than one of you — that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go to your wedding, bring you a nice gift, and wish you well. (And I would mean it.)  It doesn’t mean I won’t treat you and your spouse, or your union, with respect. If you’re my friend I accept you as you are. I don’t judge you (much). I like you, damn it, or we wouldn’t be friends. Just because I, personally, would not choose to have our government lend official sanction to something that you, by contrast, want recognized, does not mean that I wish to deny you your civil rights. It means I disagree on the definition of those rights.  I am not a dictator.  I am one voter with one vote.  My opinion does not determine the course of your life, nor should you behave as if it does.

Where marriage is concerned I’d rather see the government out of the marriage business and leave such unions up to private religious organizations… but that’s because I reject a lot of accepted political paradigms in favor of a much more objective, capitalist model. In other words, I don’t support [proposition whatever] because I reject the premises on which it is based. If I personally believe that such-and-such a behavior isn’t “normal,” that doesn’t mean I dislike you or want bad things for you. I’m not so “normal” myself in other areas of life. But that’s not the point.

Politically, I’m a libertarian. Socially, I’m a conservative. Frankly, I’m a pretty old-fashioned guy in many respects, and I’m coming to terms with that. About the time I visited my childhood church because my mother was being ordained as an elder, and I realized the service had become too informal, too “modern” for my tastes, I was struck by the sudden realization that I’m now a curmudgeon. I’m one step removed from telling you kids to get off my lawn. Well, okay. I can live with that. But I’m also a couple of generations removed from my grandparents’ generation, the generation of WWII, and I’m a freaking hippie compared to my grandfather, whose stern but consistent principles I always respected.

What this means is I don’t give a damn what you do with your personal life. I won’t treat you shabbily because of it. I don’t think less of you as a person. You can be a squealing, whining liberal and I’ll still be your friend if you’ll be mine, and we can agree on the fact that our politics differ. If I quietly think you’re wrong about things, this doesn’t mean I don’t respect you. It just means I disagree with you.

Unlike the scions of the left, I do not interpret disapproval of certain lifestyles, chosen or inborn, as “HATRED.” I think believing that someone “hates” you because they don’t agree with your opinions or your outlook is arrogant and childish. It invests in you far too much credit and significance in the minds and lives of others. I do not define you as what you do. You are not your sexual identity, in my mind. You can be a freaking furry or a Real Doll pervert if you want and it makes no difference to me. I’m just not going to go to Burger King with you while you’re wearing a squirrel suit or driving your silicon doll around in the passenger seat of your car.

When you express opinions online, and especially when you encounter someone like me — someone whose avocation is the presentation of firmly held and ardently expressed opinions — you’ve got a choice. You can accept that other people disagree with you, or you can wrongly believe that any difference of opinion is some kind of affront, some personal insult that you cannot abide. While I will admit that at times I have “unfriended” people who never seemed to express anything but sentiments with which I disagree, as a matter of principle and in terms of how I treat other human beings in real life, I do not begrudge you your politics. To remain among the online community of those who engage in sociopolitical discourse, however, you will have to have the maturity to offer others the same respect.

Grow up or get off the grid. Those are the choices.

Technocracy: Liberals’ Rape of Constitution

My WND Technocracy column this week debunks a trend I noticed on Twitter: Liberal useful idiots parroting a false report claiming that Republican sex scandals outnumber Democrat sex scandals by a two to one margin.

Worse, the propaganda distracts us from liberals’ open support for normalizing perversion, a support that occurs behind judges’ gavels, directly affecting our lives.

Progressives have repeatedly tried to quantify, through pseudoscience and made-up or misconstrued statistics, their belief in their superiority.  Like all liberal propaganda, these attempts collapse when actually examined and tested.

Read the full column here in WND.

Technocracy: Obama’s Abhorrence of Producers

My WND Technocracy column this week addresses Barack Hussein Obama’s now infamous quote that, if you have a business, “you didn’t build that.”

…Obama and the Democrats have revealed the villainy in their souls.

The attitude is nothing less than the naked admission that Obama and his ilk hate producers, don’t understand economics, and believe all success is the result of centrally planned largesse. This is the attitude of Ayn Rand’s fictional villains come to life.

The fact that Obama’s derision of producers has become an Internet meme is just icing on the cake.

Read the full column here in WND.