Nicolas Wilson's Blog: News about the novels and writing of Nicolas Wilson
June 3, 2014
Long Time No See
Apologies for the long absence without news. Following Homeless' release, I've been working on my summer's releases, including Nexus' sequel Sins Of The Past, and some extra goodies in other anthologies. In a month or two, I should have excerpts and such to start sharing. It's been jarring, at times, to return to characters I first got to know five years ago, but it's been a fun journey. I'm looking forward to drafting Nexus 3, Fight The Future, already. Thanks for taking that trip with me.
February 11, 2014
Preview: Homeless, Part 4
Here's the last excerpt from Homeless. It goes live next week. Thanks for following along!
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
Homeless, Part 3
Homeless, Part 4
“My wife’s charity, however vicarious, might have saved me. Because I do not believe my rations would have lasted this long. Now, I survive by the charity of my neighbors. They give me food, and water, because they pity me. But one by one, they up stakes, and head west, where the food grows easier, and the weather's less miserable. I’ve had a few offer to take me- for pity, again- but I couldn’t leave.” He looks at the home again, and sighs.
“She's still in there, my Josephine. I... I try not to think about it, but she's been in there long enough that there's hardly anything left. Bones, and skin, perhaps. The muscle, and sinew, all of that will have dried up. I try to remember that, but in my mind, I see her, sleeping peaceably on the floor, preserved. And I’ve wanted more than anything to be able to bury her.”
“You can't go back in,” I tell him, because I know he needs to hear it.
“I know,” he says, but I can tell he’s going to need more convincing.
“Tent’s done,” I say.
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t even prepare my own shelter anymore. I’d have been swearing at that thing another half the night, before I gave up and crawled beneath the tarp. I haven’t been a man in a long, long time, hiding in my front lawn. I can't even bury my wife.”
I’ve lost this discussion before, and I’m desperate enough not to lose it again that I tell him, “I’m a wall-banger.”
“Good old Harveys,” he says. “But I haven’t any money- not even in the house.”
“I’m not offering my services for hire- just… offering.”
He spends all of a few seconds pondering it over. “I’ve gotten too used to the idea that our home is my wife’s mausoleum- and too used to the idea that it’ll one day be mine- to desecrate it.”
“There are other places. Better places. Safer. With food.”
“And people to help me put up the tent?” he asks me, with a clever old smile that tells me he knows the answer already.
“I’m an old man. And even if this better place was a Shangri-La, I would still age, until one night I could not assemble my tent at all. And I would die of exposure, shivering and alone- only more so for having abandoned my wife and our home.”
“Don’t,” I plead with him, “not tonight. Come the sunrise you’ll feel better.”
“I don’t,” he says. “We used to watch the sun rise together, my wife and I. My neighbor says that’s the best part of sleeping outdoors- waking with the sun every day. But for me, it just reminds me, it’s another day without my Jo- another day I don’t goddamned want.” He sniffles, but he straightens up, and that’s when I know I can’t save him.
I could hit him over the head, and drag him away, even to another city, and strand him there. But he’d find his way back, or maybe even just slit his wrists. And the end might well be the same, but he’d be a dead man I robbed of his last wish, and his dignity, so I don’t stand up.
“You can shuffle off, if you like. It’ll be noisy, I understand- not easy to listen to. I… remember the sounds of that night- and I wouldn’t wish them on another soul. You’re welcome to the tent; you went to all the trouble of raising it, and someone might as well sleep in it tonight. And thank you, for the chat. I know it might not be ending on terms you might have preferred, but… I think, perhaps, I simply didn’t want to die alone. It’s… a terrible burden to heap on a stranger- so please, don’t feel compelled to stay. But it was nice, having someone to say goodbye to. Mitch,” he nods at me, and even smiles.
Then he walks to his front door, fumbling in his jacket for keys. It’s been long enough since he’s done it that he’s not sure which pocket they’re hiding in, and it takes a good deal of patting before he finds them. When he does, he smiles to himself, and unlocks the door. He steps inside and says, “Honey, I’m back.” Then he closes the door and bolts it.
A moment passes before he screams and dies. And if that was the last I heard from him, I'd have thanked a good lord. But I hear it, the sounds of them tearing at him, first ripping through his garments, with the occasional thrust carrying through his flesh. Then his tendons snap, making a sound like overburdened rope as it breaks. Maybe that god isn't all bad, because at least Lionell doesn't have to live through this part.
My blood is up, after that, and I know it will be all but impossible to feel safe tonight, particularly here. But I haven’t laid out my own tent, or cultivated my own fire, and I can already feel the cold in my bones. So I crawl under the tent, and wrap myself in blankets that smell strongly of an old man’s aftershave.
It’s not the first night I’ve lain in a dead man’s bed, and I’m not naïve enough to believe it’s the last.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
Homeless, Part 3
Homeless, Part 4
“My wife’s charity, however vicarious, might have saved me. Because I do not believe my rations would have lasted this long. Now, I survive by the charity of my neighbors. They give me food, and water, because they pity me. But one by one, they up stakes, and head west, where the food grows easier, and the weather's less miserable. I’ve had a few offer to take me- for pity, again- but I couldn’t leave.” He looks at the home again, and sighs.
“She's still in there, my Josephine. I... I try not to think about it, but she's been in there long enough that there's hardly anything left. Bones, and skin, perhaps. The muscle, and sinew, all of that will have dried up. I try to remember that, but in my mind, I see her, sleeping peaceably on the floor, preserved. And I’ve wanted more than anything to be able to bury her.”
“You can't go back in,” I tell him, because I know he needs to hear it.
“I know,” he says, but I can tell he’s going to need more convincing.
“Tent’s done,” I say.
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t even prepare my own shelter anymore. I’d have been swearing at that thing another half the night, before I gave up and crawled beneath the tarp. I haven’t been a man in a long, long time, hiding in my front lawn. I can't even bury my wife.”
I’ve lost this discussion before, and I’m desperate enough not to lose it again that I tell him, “I’m a wall-banger.”
“Good old Harveys,” he says. “But I haven’t any money- not even in the house.”
“I’m not offering my services for hire- just… offering.”
He spends all of a few seconds pondering it over. “I’ve gotten too used to the idea that our home is my wife’s mausoleum- and too used to the idea that it’ll one day be mine- to desecrate it.”
“There are other places. Better places. Safer. With food.”
“And people to help me put up the tent?” he asks me, with a clever old smile that tells me he knows the answer already.
“I’m an old man. And even if this better place was a Shangri-La, I would still age, until one night I could not assemble my tent at all. And I would die of exposure, shivering and alone- only more so for having abandoned my wife and our home.”
“Don’t,” I plead with him, “not tonight. Come the sunrise you’ll feel better.”
“I don’t,” he says. “We used to watch the sun rise together, my wife and I. My neighbor says that’s the best part of sleeping outdoors- waking with the sun every day. But for me, it just reminds me, it’s another day without my Jo- another day I don’t goddamned want.” He sniffles, but he straightens up, and that’s when I know I can’t save him.
I could hit him over the head, and drag him away, even to another city, and strand him there. But he’d find his way back, or maybe even just slit his wrists. And the end might well be the same, but he’d be a dead man I robbed of his last wish, and his dignity, so I don’t stand up.
“You can shuffle off, if you like. It’ll be noisy, I understand- not easy to listen to. I… remember the sounds of that night- and I wouldn’t wish them on another soul. You’re welcome to the tent; you went to all the trouble of raising it, and someone might as well sleep in it tonight. And thank you, for the chat. I know it might not be ending on terms you might have preferred, but… I think, perhaps, I simply didn’t want to die alone. It’s… a terrible burden to heap on a stranger- so please, don’t feel compelled to stay. But it was nice, having someone to say goodbye to. Mitch,” he nods at me, and even smiles.
Then he walks to his front door, fumbling in his jacket for keys. It’s been long enough since he’s done it that he’s not sure which pocket they’re hiding in, and it takes a good deal of patting before he finds them. When he does, he smiles to himself, and unlocks the door. He steps inside and says, “Honey, I’m back.” Then he closes the door and bolts it.
A moment passes before he screams and dies. And if that was the last I heard from him, I'd have thanked a good lord. But I hear it, the sounds of them tearing at him, first ripping through his garments, with the occasional thrust carrying through his flesh. Then his tendons snap, making a sound like overburdened rope as it breaks. Maybe that god isn't all bad, because at least Lionell doesn't have to live through this part.
My blood is up, after that, and I know it will be all but impossible to feel safe tonight, particularly here. But I haven’t laid out my own tent, or cultivated my own fire, and I can already feel the cold in my bones. So I crawl under the tent, and wrap myself in blankets that smell strongly of an old man’s aftershave.
It’s not the first night I’ve lain in a dead man’s bed, and I’m not naïve enough to believe it’s the last.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
February 4, 2014
Preview: Homeless, Part 3
Here's the next excerpt from Homeless.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
Homeless, Part 3
“It killed me,” he says, “to leave her like that, but I knew she was dead, or at least that I couldn't help her if I was bleeding out beside her. So I ran, out onto the front lawn. I took my phone, and I called the police. Nobody picked up. That seemed strange- that I'd never heard of. And that was when my ears pricked up, and I heard the screams. All around the neighborhood, people were screaming.”
“I wanted to be useful, run door to door warning people who maybe hadn't been hurt yet. But my legs were jelly, my spine a jam. I collapsed in the grass, in what I was pretty sure was ground zero for my neighbor's shih tzu. And I couldn't move from there. One of my neighbors found me in the morning, in the same damn spot, staring at my house, weeping. I wasn't blinking, just staring straight ahead, sobbing.”
“I got my garage open that next day, fetched out as many of the supplies as it was safe to get, and this tent- this goddamned tent.” He kicks it, and dislodges one of the poles from the spikes. “Sorry,” he says to me. “I'm used to being able to take out my frustration on this damn thing without it hurting anybody else.”
“It's all right,” I tell him, and bend the pole enough to get it attached to the spike, though if he kicks it again, I'm in a mood to kick him in return.
“It was hard to remember all the things they said on TV, the new rules,” he says bitterly. “We lost about half the neighborhood that first night. And in the days after, we lost another quarter, while we figured out the things we’d forgotten. That it isn’t safe inside, no matter how bright it is outside. That you have to take down the tents, every day, or they get infected, too. And the cars, too, unless you got a moon roof,” he remembers it all, now, and recites it out of habit, because his wife and neighbors paid for the knowledge in blood.
“Because of Jo’s squirreling, I had more supplies than most. I kept that fact a secret, because in those early days many good men took to looting. But I helped my neighbors, as I could. Because… it was what Jo would have done. She loved having neighbors, having their children in our yard. I’d complain to her, that I spent all that time and effort and money fertilizing, and planting, manicuring and mowing- and that I didn’t go through all that to have our yard trampled by brats I wasn’t even related to. She laughed at me. And said yards belonged to children; they existed for them to play on.”
“She wasn’t guilting me, you understand, or trying to shut me up, reminding me that it was as close to children as we would get. She just… she loved having neighbors- community. She went to neighborhood meetings. And volunteered at the school. And I… I had more food than I thought I could ever need. But we- all of us presumed this too would pass. Convinced ourselves that science or government or god would root out our problem and burn it out.”
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
Homeless, Part 3
“It killed me,” he says, “to leave her like that, but I knew she was dead, or at least that I couldn't help her if I was bleeding out beside her. So I ran, out onto the front lawn. I took my phone, and I called the police. Nobody picked up. That seemed strange- that I'd never heard of. And that was when my ears pricked up, and I heard the screams. All around the neighborhood, people were screaming.”
“I wanted to be useful, run door to door warning people who maybe hadn't been hurt yet. But my legs were jelly, my spine a jam. I collapsed in the grass, in what I was pretty sure was ground zero for my neighbor's shih tzu. And I couldn't move from there. One of my neighbors found me in the morning, in the same damn spot, staring at my house, weeping. I wasn't blinking, just staring straight ahead, sobbing.”
“I got my garage open that next day, fetched out as many of the supplies as it was safe to get, and this tent- this goddamned tent.” He kicks it, and dislodges one of the poles from the spikes. “Sorry,” he says to me. “I'm used to being able to take out my frustration on this damn thing without it hurting anybody else.”
“It's all right,” I tell him, and bend the pole enough to get it attached to the spike, though if he kicks it again, I'm in a mood to kick him in return.
“It was hard to remember all the things they said on TV, the new rules,” he says bitterly. “We lost about half the neighborhood that first night. And in the days after, we lost another quarter, while we figured out the things we’d forgotten. That it isn’t safe inside, no matter how bright it is outside. That you have to take down the tents, every day, or they get infected, too. And the cars, too, unless you got a moon roof,” he remembers it all, now, and recites it out of habit, because his wife and neighbors paid for the knowledge in blood.
“Because of Jo’s squirreling, I had more supplies than most. I kept that fact a secret, because in those early days many good men took to looting. But I helped my neighbors, as I could. Because… it was what Jo would have done. She loved having neighbors, having their children in our yard. I’d complain to her, that I spent all that time and effort and money fertilizing, and planting, manicuring and mowing- and that I didn’t go through all that to have our yard trampled by brats I wasn’t even related to. She laughed at me. And said yards belonged to children; they existed for them to play on.”
“She wasn’t guilting me, you understand, or trying to shut me up, reminding me that it was as close to children as we would get. She just… she loved having neighbors- community. She went to neighborhood meetings. And volunteered at the school. And I… I had more food than I thought I could ever need. But we- all of us presumed this too would pass. Convinced ourselves that science or government or god would root out our problem and burn it out.”
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
January 28, 2014
Preview: Homeless, Part 2
It's that time again, time for another preview of Homeless.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
“It's the house Josephine died in,” he says gravely. His face contorts. He's used to folks judging him for that, pretending like we weren't all of us caught unawares to at least some degree.
“Oh, we heard the warnings,” he says, “from out East, on the television. But they seemed like so much insanity. Houses getting... haunted isn't exactly the thing, but inhabited. Becoming dangerous. The government told us that it wasn't safe to stay inside, that we'd need to sleep outdoors, in tents. We bought this one, in case, because Josephine was practical, in that way. She bought all kinds of rainy day supplies, bottled water, canned foods and all the like.
“But I didn't like putting up the tent. It hurt my hands,” he raises them up to show me, they're crooked and craggy, with skin so papery I'm surprised the bones don't break through as he claws the air. “I've got arthritis. So did she, but I think mine bothered me more- or maybe I just complained more readily.
“So we slept most nights indoors. We went places, trying to live by the edicts we were given, staying outdoors, but this is the Pacific Northwest, and the outdoors is no place for old bones, especially not in the winter time.
“They came one night. It's likely they arrived in the morning- I heard things stirring in the attic, things I dismissed as just a rambunctious squirrel. But the noise grew. Jo laughed and said maybe it was two squirrels- amorous ones, and even suggested we-” he paused, and flushed. “She was a playful woman. Competitive.” He swallows. “But the noise got louder. She begged me to put up the tent, so we could sleep in the yard. I could feel the cold in my bones even through our insulation, and our comforter. I told her we could weather it another night, and that I'd put up the tent in the morning.
“I woke up to her, bleeding,” he says as I pound the last stake into the ground. “I heard sobbing, and she had night terrors, so that's not all that unusual. But I sat up and I stroked her cheek, and started to tell her everything was going to be okay. Only my hand came back warm, and wet- far too much for tears or snot or drool. I groped for why that could be, and landed on she must be sick, and she'd thrown up. I grumbled at having to take time out of my sleep to launder sheets, and put on a new set, when I realized I didn't smell anything. I'd never known throw-up not to stink. I rubbed my fingers together, to test the consistency of it, expecting that gritty, almost sandy texture. But it was slick, and I don't know how but I knew then it was blood.
“I rolled over above Jo and shook her. She looked at me, which made my world make sense for a few more seconds. That's when I heard a sound, like insect wings, that kind of a buzz, or a hum, but bigger, like there were hundreds, maybe thousands, enough that they were everywhere. And it shot terror straight through me. I pulled on Jo's arm, and she stumbled out of the bed after me, but she couldn't keep to her feet, so she fell, and blood went everywhere. I realized, then, she'd been holding a cut closed in bed, and in pulling her up I opened it wide. She wasn't moving.
“I dragged her two feet in as many seconds, before I realize that the flow of blood was already slowing down. She'd lost pressure. A sliver of light cut across her face, enough that I watched the life go out of her eyes. 'Go,' she whispered to me as that happened, but it was so weak I can't ever be sure it wasn't just her last breath escaping her lungs."
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Previously:
Homeless, Part 1
Homeless, Part 2
“It's the house Josephine died in,” he says gravely. His face contorts. He's used to folks judging him for that, pretending like we weren't all of us caught unawares to at least some degree.
“Oh, we heard the warnings,” he says, “from out East, on the television. But they seemed like so much insanity. Houses getting... haunted isn't exactly the thing, but inhabited. Becoming dangerous. The government told us that it wasn't safe to stay inside, that we'd need to sleep outdoors, in tents. We bought this one, in case, because Josephine was practical, in that way. She bought all kinds of rainy day supplies, bottled water, canned foods and all the like.
“But I didn't like putting up the tent. It hurt my hands,” he raises them up to show me, they're crooked and craggy, with skin so papery I'm surprised the bones don't break through as he claws the air. “I've got arthritis. So did she, but I think mine bothered me more- or maybe I just complained more readily.
“So we slept most nights indoors. We went places, trying to live by the edicts we were given, staying outdoors, but this is the Pacific Northwest, and the outdoors is no place for old bones, especially not in the winter time.
“They came one night. It's likely they arrived in the morning- I heard things stirring in the attic, things I dismissed as just a rambunctious squirrel. But the noise grew. Jo laughed and said maybe it was two squirrels- amorous ones, and even suggested we-” he paused, and flushed. “She was a playful woman. Competitive.” He swallows. “But the noise got louder. She begged me to put up the tent, so we could sleep in the yard. I could feel the cold in my bones even through our insulation, and our comforter. I told her we could weather it another night, and that I'd put up the tent in the morning.
“I woke up to her, bleeding,” he says as I pound the last stake into the ground. “I heard sobbing, and she had night terrors, so that's not all that unusual. But I sat up and I stroked her cheek, and started to tell her everything was going to be okay. Only my hand came back warm, and wet- far too much for tears or snot or drool. I groped for why that could be, and landed on she must be sick, and she'd thrown up. I grumbled at having to take time out of my sleep to launder sheets, and put on a new set, when I realized I didn't smell anything. I'd never known throw-up not to stink. I rubbed my fingers together, to test the consistency of it, expecting that gritty, almost sandy texture. But it was slick, and I don't know how but I knew then it was blood.
“I rolled over above Jo and shook her. She looked at me, which made my world make sense for a few more seconds. That's when I heard a sound, like insect wings, that kind of a buzz, or a hum, but bigger, like there were hundreds, maybe thousands, enough that they were everywhere. And it shot terror straight through me. I pulled on Jo's arm, and she stumbled out of the bed after me, but she couldn't keep to her feet, so she fell, and blood went everywhere. I realized, then, she'd been holding a cut closed in bed, and in pulling her up I opened it wide. She wasn't moving.
“I dragged her two feet in as many seconds, before I realize that the flow of blood was already slowing down. She'd lost pressure. A sliver of light cut across her face, enough that I watched the life go out of her eyes. 'Go,' she whispered to me as that happened, but it was so weak I can't ever be sure it wasn't just her last breath escaping her lungs."
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
January 23, 2014
Preview: Homeless, Part 1
2014 is off to a busy start. It's been a long few months, but I have some new goodies to share with you. My next novel, Homeless will be coming February 18th. Stay tuned for some excerpts, and teasers.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Homeless, Part 1, You Can't Go Home.
I walk because I can’t sleep. The night air makes me tense, from a youth I can scarcely recall. I remember being told not to go out when it's dark, to fear what you couldn't see, and to stay indoors. Funny, how wrong some old advice can be.
I'm roused from my contemplation by an old man swearing. The hairs on my neck bristle. It wouldn't be the first time someone used an old man to bait a trap for me. It's a new world we're living in, one where we make the rules as we go along. And we can either forge a world where the needy find help, or one where the bastards have made us all so cynical we let our neighbors freeze to death for want of a moment's kindness.
But I don't want him shooting me, either, so I make a lot of noise on my way towards his fire. A shoe scuffed against the curb here, a little whistling, some heavy breathing. He's old enough that none of that does the trick- which might just be the torrent of swearing coming off the man canceling the sound I make.
So finally I call out. “Hello?” I ask loudly. But he doesn't hear. “Hello!” I bellow, and he starts.
“Good lord,” he says. “Scared me half to death. Don't you know not to sneak up on a body?” He’s old and old-fashioned enough to be clean shaven within the last day or two- rare because without water it requires a strong degree of determination and masochism.
“Sorry, sir,” I say, in my most apologetic tone. “You having some trouble?”
“Stupid goddamned tent,” he says, kicking a pile of tarp, spikes and poles.
“I can lend you a hand,” I tell him, and I can tell before I get the sentence out that he means to refuse, so I bend down and pick up the pole and start to thread it through the tarp before he can protest. Up close, I can tell it's a nice tent, the kind you could buy in a store, when you could survive a trip inside one of them.
He sighs. He's annoyed, by my presence, by his impotence. He shivers in the cold, and puts his arms around himself for warmth, and maybe a little more security. “That's my home,” he tells me, and points to the building not twenty feet from where his tent is. The grass is dead in a rough square where he's been raising it regularly in the shade of an evergreen tree.
I don't respond. I know if he wants to talk, he's of an age he will, without any prodding from me. And I don't know mine's the most sympathetic ear on offer.
“I bought it with my Josephine when we were both just children,” he says, “fresh from out of school. We never meant to stay there. It was too small to raise a family, and we had plans- such plans.”
The bow in his posture becomes a little more severe, the history weighing down on him as much as age and gravity. He takes in a deep breath, and continues, “But if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Josephine was barren. And our careers- well, by the time we retired, we were damned grateful to have bought our little home when the market was weak and we could afford it.”
I manage to get the poles both through, and realize he isn't going to help with the tent at all, but it's hard to begrudge him that. “I'm Lionell, by the way,” he says.
“Mitch,” I tell him, reflexively clipping off the second half of my name to keep our names from rhyming, anything to put distance between us- even phonetically.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
About Homeless:
Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in any enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill these invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.
Homeless, Part 1, You Can't Go Home.
I walk because I can’t sleep. The night air makes me tense, from a youth I can scarcely recall. I remember being told not to go out when it's dark, to fear what you couldn't see, and to stay indoors. Funny, how wrong some old advice can be.
I'm roused from my contemplation by an old man swearing. The hairs on my neck bristle. It wouldn't be the first time someone used an old man to bait a trap for me. It's a new world we're living in, one where we make the rules as we go along. And we can either forge a world where the needy find help, or one where the bastards have made us all so cynical we let our neighbors freeze to death for want of a moment's kindness.
But I don't want him shooting me, either, so I make a lot of noise on my way towards his fire. A shoe scuffed against the curb here, a little whistling, some heavy breathing. He's old enough that none of that does the trick- which might just be the torrent of swearing coming off the man canceling the sound I make.
So finally I call out. “Hello?” I ask loudly. But he doesn't hear. “Hello!” I bellow, and he starts.
“Good lord,” he says. “Scared me half to death. Don't you know not to sneak up on a body?” He’s old and old-fashioned enough to be clean shaven within the last day or two- rare because without water it requires a strong degree of determination and masochism.
“Sorry, sir,” I say, in my most apologetic tone. “You having some trouble?”
“Stupid goddamned tent,” he says, kicking a pile of tarp, spikes and poles.
“I can lend you a hand,” I tell him, and I can tell before I get the sentence out that he means to refuse, so I bend down and pick up the pole and start to thread it through the tarp before he can protest. Up close, I can tell it's a nice tent, the kind you could buy in a store, when you could survive a trip inside one of them.
He sighs. He's annoyed, by my presence, by his impotence. He shivers in the cold, and puts his arms around himself for warmth, and maybe a little more security. “That's my home,” he tells me, and points to the building not twenty feet from where his tent is. The grass is dead in a rough square where he's been raising it regularly in the shade of an evergreen tree.
I don't respond. I know if he wants to talk, he's of an age he will, without any prodding from me. And I don't know mine's the most sympathetic ear on offer.
“I bought it with my Josephine when we were both just children,” he says, “fresh from out of school. We never meant to stay there. It was too small to raise a family, and we had plans- such plans.”
The bow in his posture becomes a little more severe, the history weighing down on him as much as age and gravity. He takes in a deep breath, and continues, “But if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Josephine was barren. And our careers- well, by the time we retired, we were damned grateful to have bought our little home when the market was weak and we could afford it.”
I manage to get the poles both through, and realize he isn't going to help with the tent at all, but it's hard to begrudge him that. “I'm Lionell, by the way,” he says.
“Mitch,” I tell him, reflexively clipping off the second half of my name to keep our names from rhyming, anything to put distance between us- even phonetically.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Homeless is available for purchase.
December 12, 2013
Grab The Necromancer's Gambit for $.99, from December 12th through 15th.
I figured I'm probably not the only one looking for some reading in between the social events. So for a limited time, you can grab The Necromancer's Gambit for pretty cheap, from Amazon.
Buy it here.
Buy it here.
December 6, 2013
Apparently, I'm not the only one with Wonder Woman on the brain.
So, Wonder Woman is a particular point of contention with my wife, who believes that she will never see a realistically detailed female superhero given a non-second class franchise in her lifetime. After a few discussions in October, I took a break mid-nano to sketch out a story for what I would like to see in a WW movie, when it happens. (Which, I do believe it will.) Obviously, I've tried not to devote too much brain space to it- I may need those synaptic connections for something else. No reason not to share, though.
My plot for a WW Movie:
In the Amazon throne room, Diana’s mother forces her to choose in a Solomon-like conflict between two Amazons. She finds a solution that seems to half-please all involved. Hippolyta gives 18-year old Diana a dressing down. She says her daughter has absorbed too much of the philosophical ideas about being an Amazon, without learning their practical application- that a leader must be prepared to be tough and ruthless. Diana is more concerned with what she saw as right, and storms off.
Cut to a US fighter jet. He’s flying in a joint NATO exercise over the Mediterranean, when one of the French planes breaks formation. Over the radio, the pilot, Steve Trevor, is informed that they can’t raise the pilot- he isn’t responding. A moment later, more excitedly, they explain that the plane has been ‘mistakenly’ armed with a nuclear warhead.
Trevor breaks formation to pursue the other craft. Over the radio, Trevor hears a command from an unknown source. “Kill the American.” The other French planes break formation, and attack him. Trevor manages to shoot down two of the planes, before his own jet is damaged to the point of being incapable of firing. Rather than let the rogue pilot escape with a nuclear warhead, he smashes his plane into him, and both planes go down.
Trevor wakes up on Paradise Island, surrounded by beautiful women. He asks if he’s in Heaven. Hippolyta tells him that for him, it’s closer to hell, and stomps him into unconsciousness. We cut to Trevor in a cell, looking haggard. He tells them what he can: his name, rank, and serial number.
Cut to Hippolyta, discussing with her inner circle the man’s presence and its implication- someone has discovered their island- and worse, he brought war to it. Both planes crashed on the island. The advisers tell Hippolyta there were casualties and she storms off, and into Trevor’s cell. She rages at Trevor for the deaths he caused. He’s visibly shaken by the news, and apologizes. He explains that the man he killed had stolen a weapon of great power- the kind of weapon no sane person wants to wield. “Peace through force,” she says, signaling a kind of understanding. But his presence is still troubling, and his methods still violent and imprecise. Hippolyta retires to think, but also calls her advisers.
Meanwhile, Diana converses with an Amazon of African descent a few years her junior named Lyta. Because of Diana’s mother, they know about Trevor, while it’s being kept secret from most of the Amazons at this point. And they’re fascinated. Diana admits that she’s always felt stifled on the island. She feels like she’s been a caged bird, or a fish in a tank, when she’s meant to swim and to fly. Her friend is skeptical, and tells her it must be terrible being the beautiful daughter and heir apparent to the most powerful and respected woman on the island. Diana asks if she’s never wanted to see more of the world. Lyta hesitates, because she knows that look: Diana is about to do something reckless.
Cut back to Hippolyta, now meeting with her advisors. The outside world has made contact. She knows they can’t maintain their isolation any longer. Her scouts tell her that US ships patrol the area near the mouth of the Mediterranean, where it meets the Atlantic, looking for Trevor, his ship, the French pilot, or the bomb. Hippolyta discusses with her science and military advisors. Her scientists are skeptical that their cloaking tech will stand up to this kind of scrutiny. Moreso, they understand that while they’ve held a technical edge, they are going to lose it; a small island nation can’t continue to outpace an entire industrialized world. One military advisor, Antiope, wants to attack the ships, while the other, Philippus, says, “There will always be more ships.”
Hippolyta knows that there must be peace; perhaps through force- but peace is her ultimate goal. She tells her advisors that they need an ambassador. Antiope quietly tells her second in command, Drucilla, to interrogate the prisoner, to see what else he might know. Drucilla is about Diana’s age; she’s a mirror image of Diana, what the character might have turned out to be if she was a part of the Amazon’s military instead of its Princess. And yes, this is a stealth introduction of Donna Troy- Wonder Girl.
Diana sneaks into the prison where Trevor’s being held. She brings him food, and water. She asks him about his world. He assumes he’s being played- that she’s good cop, but he plays along. Diana hears the Dru enter, and hides. She throws the food Diana brought him against the wall, then throws him into the wall after it. She sneers, and reels back to hit him. Diana intervenes, and uses a martial arts roll to redirect the attack and leave the lieutenant on her back. She’s stunned a moment, before realizing who attacked her. She knows she can’t brutalize the prisoner with Diana there, but needs to leave, quickly. “Your mother will hear of this,” she says, and storms off.
“And your commander will, too,” Diana hits back.
Cut to the throne room again, and Hippolyta is holding back her daughter while her Antiope holds back Dru; they’re arguing, but it’s moments from becoming a brawl. Hippolyta asks if it’s true, and the bickering continues, until she directs her glare to Antiope. She sighs, and admits that it is. Hippolyta says that she’ll overlook the indiscretion, so long as she and her second can be more discreet in the future. Then she instructs them to leave.
Hippolyta tells Diana that they’re going to nominate an ambassador, decided by a trial. Diana’s excited. She talks at a fast clip about how the island should share its advanced technologies and philosophy, of all the lives they could change and save. Her mother forbids her from participating; she says by right the position should be Diana’s, but that she’s proven that she isn’t ready for the weight of the responsibility- tonight being the most recent example.
Diana storms off. Lyta follows her to the beach, still scarred by the wreckage of Trevor’s plane. She sits on the shore, and stares at the ships patrolling just a little ways off. The friend talks about Diana, and how she’s special- particularly in that she’s not a clone, like most of the Amazons. But beyond that, she’s always known Diana was special, that she’d do special things. She hated it a little, because it also meant she’d leave her. But she never blamed Diana- she can’t blame birds for flying away, it’s simply who they are.
Hippolyta posts her personal guard outside Trevor’s cell to prevent further attempts to harm him. Dru is at first annoyed, because it means they can’t further interrogate him. Antiope sees it as an opportunity. Without her guards, Hippolyta is vulnerable. She tells Dru to assemble likeminded soldiers for a coup, set for the climax of the trials.
Hippolyta announces the nature of the trial. There will be three parts, centered around the most important values of their culture: strength, wisdom, and stamina. The first test is strength- personal combat. Diana defies her mother, and stands for the trial. Hippolyta tries to argue that her daughter should be disqualified. Philippus disagrees; if the gods favor her, who are they to disagree?
Diana is well-known for her fighting prowess, and the gathered Amazons quickly favor her with chanting and applause. But coming up on the other side of the bracket is a fighter whose brutality is difficult for the other warriors to cope with, named Artemis. During their climactic fight, Diana allows herself to be bested, while protecting an Amazon bystander from some environmental hazard caused by the fight (debris, a loose spear, whatever).
Hippolyta argues for her daughter to lose. The advisors, in this capacity also serving as judges, discuss it, and one of them announces that “Strength is not to be equated with unchecked violence. On occasion, that means having the strength to lose with grace, and the strength to protect others over ourselves.”
Diana is presented the tiara for winning, but is warned that because it increases her empathy, it could tilt the rest of the contest in her favor, in particular the next event. She wisely sets it down at the table in front of her mother, for safe keeping, a move that pleases the other judges, and annoys Hippolyta.
Next comes wisdom, an oral argument for each candidate’s place as the Amazonian ambassador. Artemis believes that “Man’s world” needs to be brought to heel. Diana argues persuasively that, “It isn’t man’s world. It’s ours. We’ve spent too much time living apart from it, pretending like we’re above it. We have failed this world with our silence. We can brook that failure no longer.”
Hippolyta is furious that Diana seems to have won the crowd. One of her advisors points out, “She’s every bit her mother’s daughter.” The queen’s still angry, but it’s hard for her not to look on her daughter with some pride.
Diana is awarded the bracelets, and is permitted to wear them, as they should have no bearing on the next contest. Hippolyta reminds all the candidates that the contest is not over. Her daughter’s awards for besting individual contests does not rule her the winner. Because the trial is about their conduct, how they maintain themselves in the face of odds, against dangers and adversity- particularly the adversity of defeat. She looks at Artemis when she says this.
Next is the stamina trial, to quest for a sacred lasso. It’s essentially a foot race, over the island. But the island is filled with dangers, and animals our world has never seen. Diana’s rival from the speech plans out a trap for her. She captures Lyta, and uses her as bait, to lure Diana into a fight with a monstrous lizard. It’s doubly clever, because violence in this contest will cause Diana to lose instantly. Diana manages to evade the creature, while saving Lyta, only for Artemis to then be attacked by the lizard. Artemis panics, and assumes that she’s about to die, largely by her own hand, when Diana rescues her, and gets the lizard to trap itself beneath the roots of a large tree.
Diana gets Artemis to safety, then goes back to the lizard. Artemis doesn’t understand, but Lyta does. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“It will kill her.”
“And it will die if she doesn’t help.”
Even while the lizard snaps at her, Diana works to free it from the tree. She manages to get its head loose, and it immediately attacks her. She runs for her life. Artemis notices that she’s being careful where she leads it, particularly away from the other contestants, and away from the city. “They could help her,” she says. “They’d kill it. And maybe some of our sisters would die, too.”
Artemis goes back to the chase. We see her climb a rocky tower, intercut with Diana, running through the trees as the lizard gives tramples smaller trees chasing her, getting closer with every second. Artemis lays hands on the rope, which glows. Diana turns, and the lizard chomps on her bracelets, but can’t break through them. She scrambles out from underneath it, and runs again. We see her run between two trees. Suddenly, the golden rope is pulled taut between them, and catches the lizard in the jaw.
Artemis loosens the rope from the tree, runs at the lizard, and manages to tie the rope the rest of the way around the lizard. Once it’s done, the rope glows brightly, and the lizard lays down, docile. She unties it. She walks to Diana, with the rope in hand. Then she kneels, and presents Diana the rope. “I was never worthy of it,” she says.
Diana refuses to take it. “Worth is something proven, and earned.” She helps her rival stand. “We’re worth our measure only when we continue to strive to be better.”
Artemis holds onto the lasso, until they reach the arena. She places it on the table before Hippolyta, beside the tiara, to make it clear she believes the lasso to be Diana’s. Hippolyta is first confused by the gesture, then understands it. She recuses herself from the final judgment; she realizes that she’s been feuding with Diana as a daughter she wants to protect, not the woman she is.
Philippus delivers a speech, “That true leadership means inspiring the best in all of us, even from our rivals.” She commends everyone’s performance- and says that she has never been prouder to be an Amazon, and mentions in particular Artemis as a woman she wouldn’t want to stand on the other side of a spear from- or a lectern. Then she instructs Diana to rise, and join them on the podium.
That is when Antiope rises, and stands menacingly over Hippolyta. “Your daughter isn’t going to be ambassador. Our ambassador will be the point of a spear.” She levels one at Hippolyta. At that moment, Dru runs Antiope through with a short sword. She’s heartbroken, and explains to Hippolyta that she tried to gently guide her away from her destructive path, but failed. It’s clear from the guards’ and soldiers’ reactions that the coup never went farther than her. Hippolyta asks Philippus to take the woman into custody, for debrief. Then she says that it’s her honor to name her daughter their ambassador.
In private, Hippolyta reveals two things to her daughter. One, the Amazons have reverse-engineered the two planes, and crafted one of their own. Second, as the Amazon’s champion, she is bestowed with additional gifts, bestowed by their gods: strength, speed, flight, hardiness.
Diana leaves the meeting with her mother. And then she runs, all the way across the island in the blink of an eye, overshooting, and running across the water, past one of the US ships, before taking to the air. A lookout on the US ship asks another seawoman what he just saw- a UFO. “I don’t think we saw anything,” she says, “and I don’t think you did, either.”
Cut to the exterior of the prison, where Diana lands somewhat roughly, leaving an impact crater. She walks inside, and asks if Trevor’s ready for transport. One of the guards explains that the doctor hasn’t cleared him. Diana tells one of them to get the doctor right away.
The next day, she flies herself, Trevor, the remains of the two planes, and the bomb, in a stealth jet- based on the same tech that hides her island away. She tells him it’s her first flight, though it looks to be the same interface they use for all of their computer systems- which doesn’t make him feel at ease.
The plane cloaks as it leaves the island’s own cloaking shield, as Hippolyta watches from the throne room from the first scene. Cryptically, Philippus says to her, “You didn’t tell her.” Hippolyta says that her daughter has a world to protect- now isn’t the time to burden her with an Underworld, as well. Philippus is concerned- they’ll need her for the coming struggle. Hippolyta is convinced her daughter will come when the time dictates it.
Essentially, Paradise Island sits on top of a Hellmouth- it’s the place on Earth where things from the Underworld can spill over. Gotta lay ground for that sequel.
As Diana’s plane approaches New York, Trevor implores her to let him contact his superiors. “You can’t just fly a nuclear bomb onto a US air field and expect to be greeted as anything other than a threat.” She lets him set up a landing at a US base.
They’re met by the entire base, including its commander, all pointing guns at Diana. He tries to arrest Diana. Trevor protests. “That woman’s an ambassador, from a nation so technically advanced you can’t fathom it. They built that plane over the course of a week after looking at scraps of mine and the French one I shot down. You don’t want to start a war with the one nation we might not be able to beat.”
He hedges a moment. The US Ambassador to the UN walks out, and nods at him. He puts away the cuffs, and asks, “Is there anywhere I can escort you, madam ambassador?”
Cut to the UN. Diana is presented by the US Ambassador to the general assembly. Trevor is with them. She thanks Diana, and by extension her people, for returning the nuclear weapon, and for not proliferating their use- possibly getting in a dig about discussing international patent law over the tech in her plane. Diana looks uncomfortable at the applause she receives, as Trevor leans over to ask the ambassador how the hell the weapon ever got off the chain.
A diplomat sitting near them listens intently in his headphones. Through an unused set of headphones, Trevor hears the voice from earlier say, “He heard my voice.” The diplomat takes a pistol from his desk, and tries to shoot Trevor. Diana steps between them, and blocks the bullets with her bracelets.
Diana uses her lasso on the would-be assassin. It breaks the diplomat from his hypnotic spell. Trevor and the US Ambassador convince the police to give her a moment with the diplomat. He explains that he saw a therapist, and that he heard that therapist’s voice a moment before he tried to shoot Trevor, and found it irresistible. He claimed not to know how the gun got there. Diana believes him, but the ambassador’s skeptical. Diana hands her a piece of the lasso.
“Tell me something true you don’t want to.”
“Your age and weight,” Trevor adds. Before she can, Diana takes the rope back. “I would have told you; I don’t even like that my doctor knows.”
Trevor accompanies her to find the diplomat’s therapist. He drives, remarking that he can’t believe all of this was caused by some, “Psycho Doctor,” (the character’s comic name is Dr. Psycho). She asks why a woman wouldn’t want to admit her age or weight. He explains that some people think women have a shelf life. He says he thinks they get better with age.
We see men on the military base. We hear what they hear over their radios: “Stop them.” Suddenly, a tank drives out into traffic in the streets ahead of Trevor’s car. Diana opens the door. “Don’t stop,” she says. He tries to tell her that’s a tank, as she rolls out of the car. The tank fires, and she’s engulfed in smoke and flame.
Music swells as the fireball dissipates, and the concussion from the blast carries the smoke away. Diana has her arms crossed in an x in front of her, where she blocked the shell. She reels back, in a fighting pose, then sprints toward the tank. A machine-gun mounted on the tank tries to track her, only managing to pepper the ground where she’d been with bullets- perhaps occasionally requiring her to deflect the odd one with her bracelet. She reaches the tank, and tears the turret away. An instant later she’s on top of the tank, and drops her lasso around the tank crew. “Where is he?” she asks.
“The doctor is in,” they say in unison, before coming to their senses.
Cut a few hundred feet down the street. We see the outline of a plane flying overhead, towards the tank, and pull back to reveal the fighter jet itself, flying low between the skyscrapers. It begins to fire from a machine-gun, strafing fire towards Diana. She looks behind herself, at the tank crew who would be caught in the fire if she simply sidestepped. She stands her ground, and deflects the shots from the plane- though these knock her around a bit because they’re bigger, and require more jumping around to deflect.
One of the bullets ricochets back down the plane’s fuselage, breaches its engine and fuel, and the plane catches fire. She flies after it. The plane is about to smash into a bus full of frightened but also entranced schoolchildren. We see Diana’s reflection in the window as a young girl watches her fly in front of the plane, drop her lasso around it and yank it above the bus at the last second. “Whoa,” the little girl says.
Diana uses the rope to guide the plane to a controlled crash on top of a building. She rips the canopy off the plane, and the pilot fires a shot at her from his sidearm. She deflects it, and lassos him. He stares unbelieving at the gun, then manages to mumble an apology. She flies off.
Trevor has arrived at the high-rise offices of the diplomat’s therapist, and he’s got his service weapon in hand. He’s mumbling about her telling him, “Don’t stop. Not all of us can stop bullets, in ways that don’t,” he jabs himself in the chest, “hurt.”
He hears the voice again. “An excellent idea. Stop all the bullets.” We see the owner of the voice, a short, but relatively handsome man, in a suit. He points his finger as if it were a gun at his own head. Trevor follows suit, with his gun. He’s trembling, trying to fight it, but he can’t.
Diana’s lasso wraps around his hand, and jerks the gun down and away as he fires. “Don’t,” she says.
“K,” he mumbles, and drops to the floor.
“You,” the doctor says, “should tell me how to get you out of that little number. Zipper in the back, snaps in the front?” He smiles, pleased with himself. She tosses the lasso around him, and cinches it tight. “Crap.”
Trevor gets up off the floor, complaining that it feels like he was kicked in the head by a donkey. Then he asks if he can kick the doctor. A helicopter strafes the building, filling it full of gunfire that conveniently misses the doctor. Trevor, huddled behind a desk, asks her if she can fight off a helicopter, and when a second appears, firing on them from the other side of the building, “or two.” She says she can, but innocent people will get hurt. “Stop them,” she says to the therapist. He picks up his radio, and sighs. “Stand down,” he says.
Then she tells him he’s going to explain what he wanted with the weapon. He tells them that the weapon was merely a means to an end. “What ‘we’ wanted was violence, chaos.” A world where a man like him could rule. She asks what he meant by “we.” He tries to resist, to not tell the truth. Then he screams out in pain, and passes out.
Trevor says that he thought she said that no one could avoid telling the truth under the lasso’s sway. She says that’s what she thought. They get the doctor up, and lead him to the reception area of the office. A befuddled guard is trying to keep a gathering of reporters outside, to protect patient confidentiality. Trevor remarks that the vultures descended fast. He tells her it’s a whole new world out there, now, and asks her if she’s ready to meet it.
“No,” she says, “I’m ready to join it.”
Credits.
Stinger: We see Ares. “That was fun,” he says. A beautiful if bookish woman is with him, and seems bored by their conversation. She’s Athena. “That’s what you said after the Balkans. And the Gulf Wars. After every war. But it’s over. Your attempt to create a perpetual conflict failed. Again.”
“This fight might be over. But the world just got a little smaller. And as the world gets smaller, humans more and more feel the press of their fellow rats in the cage, and the more they trample over one another, for resources and gain. No, sister. I think this conflict is only just beginning.”
Couple of side-notes
The Amazons speak several languages. Their original language was an offshoot of ancient Greek. But as outside societies changed, and the possibility of discovery increased, they learned others, to be prepared for the inevitable contact- and to better be able to stave off conflict. They’ve spoken English primarily since the Second World War, when it became clear that the US would dominate world culture for some time to come. Though a few of the older Amazons still speak German- they hedged their bets, just in case the Germans won the war.
Fashion-wise, I think it’s silly if they go the full on toga route. It would also be boring for them to just go full modern. Instead, what I’d like to see is kind of a fusion- basically a parallel evolution of fashion from a Greek-heavy beginning, but then only marginally influenced for thousands of years by occasional contact with the outside world. If designed right, it would be modern, but almost sci fi, but with a hint of their togic origins- but always with an eye to practical active wear.
My plot for a WW Movie:
In the Amazon throne room, Diana’s mother forces her to choose in a Solomon-like conflict between two Amazons. She finds a solution that seems to half-please all involved. Hippolyta gives 18-year old Diana a dressing down. She says her daughter has absorbed too much of the philosophical ideas about being an Amazon, without learning their practical application- that a leader must be prepared to be tough and ruthless. Diana is more concerned with what she saw as right, and storms off.
Cut to a US fighter jet. He’s flying in a joint NATO exercise over the Mediterranean, when one of the French planes breaks formation. Over the radio, the pilot, Steve Trevor, is informed that they can’t raise the pilot- he isn’t responding. A moment later, more excitedly, they explain that the plane has been ‘mistakenly’ armed with a nuclear warhead.
Trevor breaks formation to pursue the other craft. Over the radio, Trevor hears a command from an unknown source. “Kill the American.” The other French planes break formation, and attack him. Trevor manages to shoot down two of the planes, before his own jet is damaged to the point of being incapable of firing. Rather than let the rogue pilot escape with a nuclear warhead, he smashes his plane into him, and both planes go down.
Trevor wakes up on Paradise Island, surrounded by beautiful women. He asks if he’s in Heaven. Hippolyta tells him that for him, it’s closer to hell, and stomps him into unconsciousness. We cut to Trevor in a cell, looking haggard. He tells them what he can: his name, rank, and serial number.
Cut to Hippolyta, discussing with her inner circle the man’s presence and its implication- someone has discovered their island- and worse, he brought war to it. Both planes crashed on the island. The advisers tell Hippolyta there were casualties and she storms off, and into Trevor’s cell. She rages at Trevor for the deaths he caused. He’s visibly shaken by the news, and apologizes. He explains that the man he killed had stolen a weapon of great power- the kind of weapon no sane person wants to wield. “Peace through force,” she says, signaling a kind of understanding. But his presence is still troubling, and his methods still violent and imprecise. Hippolyta retires to think, but also calls her advisers.
Meanwhile, Diana converses with an Amazon of African descent a few years her junior named Lyta. Because of Diana’s mother, they know about Trevor, while it’s being kept secret from most of the Amazons at this point. And they’re fascinated. Diana admits that she’s always felt stifled on the island. She feels like she’s been a caged bird, or a fish in a tank, when she’s meant to swim and to fly. Her friend is skeptical, and tells her it must be terrible being the beautiful daughter and heir apparent to the most powerful and respected woman on the island. Diana asks if she’s never wanted to see more of the world. Lyta hesitates, because she knows that look: Diana is about to do something reckless.
Cut back to Hippolyta, now meeting with her advisors. The outside world has made contact. She knows they can’t maintain their isolation any longer. Her scouts tell her that US ships patrol the area near the mouth of the Mediterranean, where it meets the Atlantic, looking for Trevor, his ship, the French pilot, or the bomb. Hippolyta discusses with her science and military advisors. Her scientists are skeptical that their cloaking tech will stand up to this kind of scrutiny. Moreso, they understand that while they’ve held a technical edge, they are going to lose it; a small island nation can’t continue to outpace an entire industrialized world. One military advisor, Antiope, wants to attack the ships, while the other, Philippus, says, “There will always be more ships.”
Hippolyta knows that there must be peace; perhaps through force- but peace is her ultimate goal. She tells her advisors that they need an ambassador. Antiope quietly tells her second in command, Drucilla, to interrogate the prisoner, to see what else he might know. Drucilla is about Diana’s age; she’s a mirror image of Diana, what the character might have turned out to be if she was a part of the Amazon’s military instead of its Princess. And yes, this is a stealth introduction of Donna Troy- Wonder Girl.
Diana sneaks into the prison where Trevor’s being held. She brings him food, and water. She asks him about his world. He assumes he’s being played- that she’s good cop, but he plays along. Diana hears the Dru enter, and hides. She throws the food Diana brought him against the wall, then throws him into the wall after it. She sneers, and reels back to hit him. Diana intervenes, and uses a martial arts roll to redirect the attack and leave the lieutenant on her back. She’s stunned a moment, before realizing who attacked her. She knows she can’t brutalize the prisoner with Diana there, but needs to leave, quickly. “Your mother will hear of this,” she says, and storms off.
“And your commander will, too,” Diana hits back.
Cut to the throne room again, and Hippolyta is holding back her daughter while her Antiope holds back Dru; they’re arguing, but it’s moments from becoming a brawl. Hippolyta asks if it’s true, and the bickering continues, until she directs her glare to Antiope. She sighs, and admits that it is. Hippolyta says that she’ll overlook the indiscretion, so long as she and her second can be more discreet in the future. Then she instructs them to leave.
Hippolyta tells Diana that they’re going to nominate an ambassador, decided by a trial. Diana’s excited. She talks at a fast clip about how the island should share its advanced technologies and philosophy, of all the lives they could change and save. Her mother forbids her from participating; she says by right the position should be Diana’s, but that she’s proven that she isn’t ready for the weight of the responsibility- tonight being the most recent example.
Diana storms off. Lyta follows her to the beach, still scarred by the wreckage of Trevor’s plane. She sits on the shore, and stares at the ships patrolling just a little ways off. The friend talks about Diana, and how she’s special- particularly in that she’s not a clone, like most of the Amazons. But beyond that, she’s always known Diana was special, that she’d do special things. She hated it a little, because it also meant she’d leave her. But she never blamed Diana- she can’t blame birds for flying away, it’s simply who they are.
Hippolyta posts her personal guard outside Trevor’s cell to prevent further attempts to harm him. Dru is at first annoyed, because it means they can’t further interrogate him. Antiope sees it as an opportunity. Without her guards, Hippolyta is vulnerable. She tells Dru to assemble likeminded soldiers for a coup, set for the climax of the trials.
Hippolyta announces the nature of the trial. There will be three parts, centered around the most important values of their culture: strength, wisdom, and stamina. The first test is strength- personal combat. Diana defies her mother, and stands for the trial. Hippolyta tries to argue that her daughter should be disqualified. Philippus disagrees; if the gods favor her, who are they to disagree?
Diana is well-known for her fighting prowess, and the gathered Amazons quickly favor her with chanting and applause. But coming up on the other side of the bracket is a fighter whose brutality is difficult for the other warriors to cope with, named Artemis. During their climactic fight, Diana allows herself to be bested, while protecting an Amazon bystander from some environmental hazard caused by the fight (debris, a loose spear, whatever).
Hippolyta argues for her daughter to lose. The advisors, in this capacity also serving as judges, discuss it, and one of them announces that “Strength is not to be equated with unchecked violence. On occasion, that means having the strength to lose with grace, and the strength to protect others over ourselves.”
Diana is presented the tiara for winning, but is warned that because it increases her empathy, it could tilt the rest of the contest in her favor, in particular the next event. She wisely sets it down at the table in front of her mother, for safe keeping, a move that pleases the other judges, and annoys Hippolyta.
Next comes wisdom, an oral argument for each candidate’s place as the Amazonian ambassador. Artemis believes that “Man’s world” needs to be brought to heel. Diana argues persuasively that, “It isn’t man’s world. It’s ours. We’ve spent too much time living apart from it, pretending like we’re above it. We have failed this world with our silence. We can brook that failure no longer.”
Hippolyta is furious that Diana seems to have won the crowd. One of her advisors points out, “She’s every bit her mother’s daughter.” The queen’s still angry, but it’s hard for her not to look on her daughter with some pride.
Diana is awarded the bracelets, and is permitted to wear them, as they should have no bearing on the next contest. Hippolyta reminds all the candidates that the contest is not over. Her daughter’s awards for besting individual contests does not rule her the winner. Because the trial is about their conduct, how they maintain themselves in the face of odds, against dangers and adversity- particularly the adversity of defeat. She looks at Artemis when she says this.
Next is the stamina trial, to quest for a sacred lasso. It’s essentially a foot race, over the island. But the island is filled with dangers, and animals our world has never seen. Diana’s rival from the speech plans out a trap for her. She captures Lyta, and uses her as bait, to lure Diana into a fight with a monstrous lizard. It’s doubly clever, because violence in this contest will cause Diana to lose instantly. Diana manages to evade the creature, while saving Lyta, only for Artemis to then be attacked by the lizard. Artemis panics, and assumes that she’s about to die, largely by her own hand, when Diana rescues her, and gets the lizard to trap itself beneath the roots of a large tree.
Diana gets Artemis to safety, then goes back to the lizard. Artemis doesn’t understand, but Lyta does. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“It will kill her.”
“And it will die if she doesn’t help.”
Even while the lizard snaps at her, Diana works to free it from the tree. She manages to get its head loose, and it immediately attacks her. She runs for her life. Artemis notices that she’s being careful where she leads it, particularly away from the other contestants, and away from the city. “They could help her,” she says. “They’d kill it. And maybe some of our sisters would die, too.”
Artemis goes back to the chase. We see her climb a rocky tower, intercut with Diana, running through the trees as the lizard gives tramples smaller trees chasing her, getting closer with every second. Artemis lays hands on the rope, which glows. Diana turns, and the lizard chomps on her bracelets, but can’t break through them. She scrambles out from underneath it, and runs again. We see her run between two trees. Suddenly, the golden rope is pulled taut between them, and catches the lizard in the jaw.
Artemis loosens the rope from the tree, runs at the lizard, and manages to tie the rope the rest of the way around the lizard. Once it’s done, the rope glows brightly, and the lizard lays down, docile. She unties it. She walks to Diana, with the rope in hand. Then she kneels, and presents Diana the rope. “I was never worthy of it,” she says.
Diana refuses to take it. “Worth is something proven, and earned.” She helps her rival stand. “We’re worth our measure only when we continue to strive to be better.”
Artemis holds onto the lasso, until they reach the arena. She places it on the table before Hippolyta, beside the tiara, to make it clear she believes the lasso to be Diana’s. Hippolyta is first confused by the gesture, then understands it. She recuses herself from the final judgment; she realizes that she’s been feuding with Diana as a daughter she wants to protect, not the woman she is.
Philippus delivers a speech, “That true leadership means inspiring the best in all of us, even from our rivals.” She commends everyone’s performance- and says that she has never been prouder to be an Amazon, and mentions in particular Artemis as a woman she wouldn’t want to stand on the other side of a spear from- or a lectern. Then she instructs Diana to rise, and join them on the podium.
That is when Antiope rises, and stands menacingly over Hippolyta. “Your daughter isn’t going to be ambassador. Our ambassador will be the point of a spear.” She levels one at Hippolyta. At that moment, Dru runs Antiope through with a short sword. She’s heartbroken, and explains to Hippolyta that she tried to gently guide her away from her destructive path, but failed. It’s clear from the guards’ and soldiers’ reactions that the coup never went farther than her. Hippolyta asks Philippus to take the woman into custody, for debrief. Then she says that it’s her honor to name her daughter their ambassador.
In private, Hippolyta reveals two things to her daughter. One, the Amazons have reverse-engineered the two planes, and crafted one of their own. Second, as the Amazon’s champion, she is bestowed with additional gifts, bestowed by their gods: strength, speed, flight, hardiness.
Diana leaves the meeting with her mother. And then she runs, all the way across the island in the blink of an eye, overshooting, and running across the water, past one of the US ships, before taking to the air. A lookout on the US ship asks another seawoman what he just saw- a UFO. “I don’t think we saw anything,” she says, “and I don’t think you did, either.”
Cut to the exterior of the prison, where Diana lands somewhat roughly, leaving an impact crater. She walks inside, and asks if Trevor’s ready for transport. One of the guards explains that the doctor hasn’t cleared him. Diana tells one of them to get the doctor right away.
The next day, she flies herself, Trevor, the remains of the two planes, and the bomb, in a stealth jet- based on the same tech that hides her island away. She tells him it’s her first flight, though it looks to be the same interface they use for all of their computer systems- which doesn’t make him feel at ease.
The plane cloaks as it leaves the island’s own cloaking shield, as Hippolyta watches from the throne room from the first scene. Cryptically, Philippus says to her, “You didn’t tell her.” Hippolyta says that her daughter has a world to protect- now isn’t the time to burden her with an Underworld, as well. Philippus is concerned- they’ll need her for the coming struggle. Hippolyta is convinced her daughter will come when the time dictates it.
Essentially, Paradise Island sits on top of a Hellmouth- it’s the place on Earth where things from the Underworld can spill over. Gotta lay ground for that sequel.
As Diana’s plane approaches New York, Trevor implores her to let him contact his superiors. “You can’t just fly a nuclear bomb onto a US air field and expect to be greeted as anything other than a threat.” She lets him set up a landing at a US base.
They’re met by the entire base, including its commander, all pointing guns at Diana. He tries to arrest Diana. Trevor protests. “That woman’s an ambassador, from a nation so technically advanced you can’t fathom it. They built that plane over the course of a week after looking at scraps of mine and the French one I shot down. You don’t want to start a war with the one nation we might not be able to beat.”
He hedges a moment. The US Ambassador to the UN walks out, and nods at him. He puts away the cuffs, and asks, “Is there anywhere I can escort you, madam ambassador?”
Cut to the UN. Diana is presented by the US Ambassador to the general assembly. Trevor is with them. She thanks Diana, and by extension her people, for returning the nuclear weapon, and for not proliferating their use- possibly getting in a dig about discussing international patent law over the tech in her plane. Diana looks uncomfortable at the applause she receives, as Trevor leans over to ask the ambassador how the hell the weapon ever got off the chain.
A diplomat sitting near them listens intently in his headphones. Through an unused set of headphones, Trevor hears the voice from earlier say, “He heard my voice.” The diplomat takes a pistol from his desk, and tries to shoot Trevor. Diana steps between them, and blocks the bullets with her bracelets.
Diana uses her lasso on the would-be assassin. It breaks the diplomat from his hypnotic spell. Trevor and the US Ambassador convince the police to give her a moment with the diplomat. He explains that he saw a therapist, and that he heard that therapist’s voice a moment before he tried to shoot Trevor, and found it irresistible. He claimed not to know how the gun got there. Diana believes him, but the ambassador’s skeptical. Diana hands her a piece of the lasso.
“Tell me something true you don’t want to.”
“Your age and weight,” Trevor adds. Before she can, Diana takes the rope back. “I would have told you; I don’t even like that my doctor knows.”
Trevor accompanies her to find the diplomat’s therapist. He drives, remarking that he can’t believe all of this was caused by some, “Psycho Doctor,” (the character’s comic name is Dr. Psycho). She asks why a woman wouldn’t want to admit her age or weight. He explains that some people think women have a shelf life. He says he thinks they get better with age.
We see men on the military base. We hear what they hear over their radios: “Stop them.” Suddenly, a tank drives out into traffic in the streets ahead of Trevor’s car. Diana opens the door. “Don’t stop,” she says. He tries to tell her that’s a tank, as she rolls out of the car. The tank fires, and she’s engulfed in smoke and flame.
Music swells as the fireball dissipates, and the concussion from the blast carries the smoke away. Diana has her arms crossed in an x in front of her, where she blocked the shell. She reels back, in a fighting pose, then sprints toward the tank. A machine-gun mounted on the tank tries to track her, only managing to pepper the ground where she’d been with bullets- perhaps occasionally requiring her to deflect the odd one with her bracelet. She reaches the tank, and tears the turret away. An instant later she’s on top of the tank, and drops her lasso around the tank crew. “Where is he?” she asks.
“The doctor is in,” they say in unison, before coming to their senses.
Cut a few hundred feet down the street. We see the outline of a plane flying overhead, towards the tank, and pull back to reveal the fighter jet itself, flying low between the skyscrapers. It begins to fire from a machine-gun, strafing fire towards Diana. She looks behind herself, at the tank crew who would be caught in the fire if she simply sidestepped. She stands her ground, and deflects the shots from the plane- though these knock her around a bit because they’re bigger, and require more jumping around to deflect.
One of the bullets ricochets back down the plane’s fuselage, breaches its engine and fuel, and the plane catches fire. She flies after it. The plane is about to smash into a bus full of frightened but also entranced schoolchildren. We see Diana’s reflection in the window as a young girl watches her fly in front of the plane, drop her lasso around it and yank it above the bus at the last second. “Whoa,” the little girl says.
Diana uses the rope to guide the plane to a controlled crash on top of a building. She rips the canopy off the plane, and the pilot fires a shot at her from his sidearm. She deflects it, and lassos him. He stares unbelieving at the gun, then manages to mumble an apology. She flies off.
Trevor has arrived at the high-rise offices of the diplomat’s therapist, and he’s got his service weapon in hand. He’s mumbling about her telling him, “Don’t stop. Not all of us can stop bullets, in ways that don’t,” he jabs himself in the chest, “hurt.”
He hears the voice again. “An excellent idea. Stop all the bullets.” We see the owner of the voice, a short, but relatively handsome man, in a suit. He points his finger as if it were a gun at his own head. Trevor follows suit, with his gun. He’s trembling, trying to fight it, but he can’t.
Diana’s lasso wraps around his hand, and jerks the gun down and away as he fires. “Don’t,” she says.
“K,” he mumbles, and drops to the floor.
“You,” the doctor says, “should tell me how to get you out of that little number. Zipper in the back, snaps in the front?” He smiles, pleased with himself. She tosses the lasso around him, and cinches it tight. “Crap.”
Trevor gets up off the floor, complaining that it feels like he was kicked in the head by a donkey. Then he asks if he can kick the doctor. A helicopter strafes the building, filling it full of gunfire that conveniently misses the doctor. Trevor, huddled behind a desk, asks her if she can fight off a helicopter, and when a second appears, firing on them from the other side of the building, “or two.” She says she can, but innocent people will get hurt. “Stop them,” she says to the therapist. He picks up his radio, and sighs. “Stand down,” he says.
Then she tells him he’s going to explain what he wanted with the weapon. He tells them that the weapon was merely a means to an end. “What ‘we’ wanted was violence, chaos.” A world where a man like him could rule. She asks what he meant by “we.” He tries to resist, to not tell the truth. Then he screams out in pain, and passes out.
Trevor says that he thought she said that no one could avoid telling the truth under the lasso’s sway. She says that’s what she thought. They get the doctor up, and lead him to the reception area of the office. A befuddled guard is trying to keep a gathering of reporters outside, to protect patient confidentiality. Trevor remarks that the vultures descended fast. He tells her it’s a whole new world out there, now, and asks her if she’s ready to meet it.
“No,” she says, “I’m ready to join it.”
Credits.
Stinger: We see Ares. “That was fun,” he says. A beautiful if bookish woman is with him, and seems bored by their conversation. She’s Athena. “That’s what you said after the Balkans. And the Gulf Wars. After every war. But it’s over. Your attempt to create a perpetual conflict failed. Again.”
“This fight might be over. But the world just got a little smaller. And as the world gets smaller, humans more and more feel the press of their fellow rats in the cage, and the more they trample over one another, for resources and gain. No, sister. I think this conflict is only just beginning.”
Couple of side-notes
The Amazons speak several languages. Their original language was an offshoot of ancient Greek. But as outside societies changed, and the possibility of discovery increased, they learned others, to be prepared for the inevitable contact- and to better be able to stave off conflict. They’ve spoken English primarily since the Second World War, when it became clear that the US would dominate world culture for some time to come. Though a few of the older Amazons still speak German- they hedged their bets, just in case the Germans won the war.
Fashion-wise, I think it’s silly if they go the full on toga route. It would also be boring for them to just go full modern. Instead, what I’d like to see is kind of a fusion- basically a parallel evolution of fashion from a Greek-heavy beginning, but then only marginally influenced for thousands of years by occasional contact with the outside world. If designed right, it would be modern, but almost sci fi, but with a hint of their togic origins- but always with an eye to practical active wear.
November 15, 2013
Mid-NaNo check in.
Thanks for your support of 2013's NaNo project, Twist. It's continuing to serialize on my website, and on wattpad. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm happy to announce that today I finished the first draft of it. It's slightly shorter than legit NaNo length, but that usually gets fixed in editing. I'm excited to begin another project for the rest of the month, to be finished for the new year.
If you want to catch up on Twist, and keep watch for the ending insanity, check out the NicolasWilson.com blog, or my wattpad profile.
See you shortly, when I'll begin sharing covers and teasers for Homeless, due early 2014, and Nexus: Sins of the Past, due summer 2014. Homeless is a post-apocalyptic gunslinger inspired survival horror in which a deadly organism has proliferated indoors, and humanity lives without shelter, security, or society. Sins of the Past is the sequel to Nexus , which finds our intrepid crew dodging the reach of the homeworld.
If you want to catch up on Twist, and keep watch for the ending insanity, check out the NicolasWilson.com blog, or my wattpad profile.
See you shortly, when I'll begin sharing covers and teasers for Homeless, due early 2014, and Nexus: Sins of the Past, due summer 2014. Homeless is a post-apocalyptic gunslinger inspired survival horror in which a deadly organism has proliferated indoors, and humanity lives without shelter, security, or society. Sins of the Past is the sequel to Nexus , which finds our intrepid crew dodging the reach of the homeworld.
November 1, 2013
NaNo 2013!
Welcome to NaNo, the month non-writers usually refer to as November. I'm going to be writing a novel this month, and you're welcome to watch. I'll be posting daily updates on my blog at nicolaswilson.com, which will be about as polished as fresh fiction can; my editor is even planning on combing over them before we post them. The novel I'm writing is a suspense/thriller called Twist. I don't know if I can say more, without giving the game away, but I'm toying with having the subtitle be “A Mystery of Mental Illness,” though I'm not sure if that'll feel right by the time I get to 'The End.' But I'm really looking forward to this project, and to getting some new writing done. I think it's going to be a fun month. Oh, and Happy Halloween.
October 18, 2013
Preview: Banksters, Part 3
And here's the last preview for Banksters. Ride shotgun with a sociopath accelerating his ascent to corporate power. Looks like it'll be released the 28th or 29th, after I get the results of the final proofread.
Point of interest, Banksters was originally syndicated daily, as written, during National Novel Writing Month 2011. It's a funny tradition of mine, to peel back my skin a bit and share my work as it happens. If you want to tag along for this year's NaNo project, Twist, a psychological thriller, visit NicolasWilson.com and check the blog daily, beginning November 2nd. Performance art, but with only metaphorical nudity.
Since my time will be directed towards Twist for the next month, we'll have a bit of a break before it's time to start sharing excerpts of Homeless, a post-apocalyptic horror novel due for release early 2014. It's going to be weird taking such a long break, but that's life. Thanks for tagging along!
Previously:
Banksters, Part 1, Howdy
Banksters, Part 2, Secretive
Banksters, Part 3, Party
A younger me would have asked Petra to the party. Of course, a younger me cared more about getting laid than getting anywhere.
She wanted to go. She hinted as much, when we got back to the office. She told me schmoozing with the other executives sounded dull, but that if I was there maybe it'd be more interesting. What she probably meant was it might afford her the opportunity to get her name on someone else's lips, which might be a step up for her career.
“I'm afraid I already have a plus one,” I told her.
“Oh, I wasn't,” she said, and tried not to look sad about it.
I once heard that if you want someone to love you, open your heart; if you want them to do anything for you, close it. And that was why I didn't tell her that my plus one was Arnie Powell. I knew him from my time on the lower floor. He had a real creative mind for finance. He was one of a handful of people who had a reasonable claim to creating credit default swaps. And it was partly on the strength of his ideas that I'd risen to be an associate vice-president- that and a timely suggestion I made to drop our status as a 'bank' to avoid having to repay TARP funds. And it would have worked, too, if not for Dodd-Frank.
But Arnie was still a golden goose. Just last week, as they were finalizing my promotion, he came up with an idea. The government had moved to limit swipe fees, the charge that credit and debit card transactions incur from retailers. This was good for small businesses, good for consumers, good for the economy as a whole. And bad for banks and financial institutions such as our company, which was going to lose some of its profitability.
But Arnie figured out a way around the new rules. We couldn't charge businesses what we had been, but if we started to charge customers a monthly fee of $2 to continue using their debit and credit cards, we'd break even. I told Arnie that if $2 got us even, $3 gained us an extra 50% on top of that. He tried to brush that aside; it was the first real resistance I'd ever gotten from him on improving one of his ideas.
I intended to throw his idea to the bosses that night at the party. I brought him along for the technical song and dance; I could pitch better than Nolan Ryan at the height of his game, but when it came to the details, even if they couldn't make sense of what the hell he was saying, the execs knew the difference between me spit-balling numbers and him giving them the real ones.
At least, that had been the plan, anyway. When I heard Alice talking, and the intermittent breaks in her voice, I knew that wasn't going to happen. “Cliff had a heart attack. That's why he didn't show this morning. He was dead by the time his daughter found him.”
Cliff Pembroke was a fat bastard, as mean as he was drunk, and sloppier even than that. The only surprise was that Cliff hadn't dropped dead choking on a whole hock of beer-battered ham years before. But the fact that he was in vaguely the same generation as the executive vice presidents meant their heads were jammed fully into their navels, and were going to stay there until morning, or they crawled into a bottle, whichever came first. I could have shown them a perpetual motion blowjob machine and they still would have found fault with its inability to counteract their mortality.
I didn't see Daria, though she was supposed to be here. I didn't allow myself to worry too much about that; she was probably around, lurking in the shadows.
What I did see was a red head hanging off Richard Morgan's arm. A red head ten years younger than his wife. F. She was vibrant, energetic, with a warmth that made her a campfire around which all of Richard's usual hangers-on gathered instead. And he didn't give a damn. Not in the least. He seemed to tolerate her, because she kept his usual parasites too preoccupied to try to pick the scraps from his teeth, but he didn't even care enough to feign interest in her- which meant he wasn't planning to sleep with her later. Seemed like a criminal waste of talent.
People drank to excess. I held the same watered-down rum and Coke in my hand, but I didn't drink it- mostly because it was watered down, but also because I didn't want any part in the revelry. And that was when Richard found me, standing in his boardroom, looking out the window. “It's nice to see I'm not the only man who doesn't feel the need to drown his dread. The reaper takes his due, on his day. Fearing it only makes us weaker.”
He touched my shoulder. Amongst friends, and equals, it was a gesture of kindness, and care. From an employer to an employee, it was a gesture of dominance; he touched me because he could, because I wouldn't do a damned thing to stop him. “You're the new AVP in finance, right? What was the name, Zane?” So was that.
“Dane,” I corrected him, and met his gaze full on.
A little smile cracked from beneath his stoic visage. “I may seem callous. But no one here is mourning Cliff. This is all self-indulgence. George is picturing himself in a coffin. Alice is obsessed with her empty home and her similarly empty womb. Allistair's worrying over his empty bed- at least he had been, until he passed out- which is more than a little ironic, given that he came with one woman and groped another. Of course, the one he came with was a groupie; as soon as he was out she wouldn't let go of my arm until she had to pee. You should take that as a lesson. At this level, everyone is out for themselves. This is a shark tank; if for a second you're not one of the apex predators, you're prey. And there’s no honor amongst carnivores.”
“I gotta say, Rich,” I could barely make out George's voice around his slur, “this is one of your better parties, and certainly your best birthday, ever.” He wanted to come into the conference room, but the doorway was the only thing keeping him off the floor.
Richard let go of my shoulder, shuddered, and turned. “You're only saying that because you aren't the only one who's embarrassingly drunk.”
“And you're only saying that because you aren't,” George said, chancing his feet and falling forward, and clapping his brother on the cheek harder probably than intended. “It wouldn't kill you to lighten up a little. It's a party.”
“It's a bacchanalia of fear, self-loathing, and guilt.”
“So wouldn't that make it your kind of party?” George asked, then grinned.
Richard put his shoulder under George's arm. “Some of us have to be respectable come the morning. Excuse us,” he said to me, then helped his brother out of the room.
That made me wonder where my own wunderkind had gotten to. I found Arnie in the executive lobby conference room, shooting heroin into one of the Administrative AVPs’ feet. “Jesus, Arnie.”
“It's a party,” he slurred. “But you got a second?”
He led me out of the room, and into somebody's office. He was silent for a good long while, getting up his balls to speak. “I need to be my own man,” he finally said. “Look, I don't care that you've taken credit for my ideas. That's not what I'm talking about. My ideas were only so good. Before you came along to sell them, I was ignored in my position, for years. And thanks to you, I've been noticed. But I want them to be my ideas again. You've learned a lot from me, and I've learned a lot from you, too. I think I can sell ideas as well as you can create them. I've thought of you as a friend for a long time, and despite the fact that I had to get ploughed to get up my nerve to say this to you, I think you know what's right, and that you'll help me get to where you are- especially now that you're in a position to help. And it might not hurt, if you started letting people know you've had a silent partner all along, somebody who didn't get as much of the glory or accolades, but maybe deserves them.” I barely heard that last little bit, because he was in the process of passing out onto a leather couch.
That wasn't good. It was going to need to be dealt with. I looked at the pillow on the other end of the couch, and wondered if I could use it to smother him. And had he had any heroin? People would buy that he ODed; but if he was just drinking there was no way people would swallow him suffocating in an office. Regardless, it was a stupid idea. Witnesses milling around. In God knows whose office- which might have a camera in it. Impulsiveness is never wise, particularly as regards homicide.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Banksters is available for purchase.
Point of interest, Banksters was originally syndicated daily, as written, during National Novel Writing Month 2011. It's a funny tradition of mine, to peel back my skin a bit and share my work as it happens. If you want to tag along for this year's NaNo project, Twist, a psychological thriller, visit NicolasWilson.com and check the blog daily, beginning November 2nd. Performance art, but with only metaphorical nudity.
Since my time will be directed towards Twist for the next month, we'll have a bit of a break before it's time to start sharing excerpts of Homeless, a post-apocalyptic horror novel due for release early 2014. It's going to be weird taking such a long break, but that's life. Thanks for tagging along!
Previously:
Banksters, Part 1, Howdy
Banksters, Part 2, Secretive
Banksters, Part 3, Party
A younger me would have asked Petra to the party. Of course, a younger me cared more about getting laid than getting anywhere.
She wanted to go. She hinted as much, when we got back to the office. She told me schmoozing with the other executives sounded dull, but that if I was there maybe it'd be more interesting. What she probably meant was it might afford her the opportunity to get her name on someone else's lips, which might be a step up for her career.
“I'm afraid I already have a plus one,” I told her.
“Oh, I wasn't,” she said, and tried not to look sad about it.
I once heard that if you want someone to love you, open your heart; if you want them to do anything for you, close it. And that was why I didn't tell her that my plus one was Arnie Powell. I knew him from my time on the lower floor. He had a real creative mind for finance. He was one of a handful of people who had a reasonable claim to creating credit default swaps. And it was partly on the strength of his ideas that I'd risen to be an associate vice-president- that and a timely suggestion I made to drop our status as a 'bank' to avoid having to repay TARP funds. And it would have worked, too, if not for Dodd-Frank.
But Arnie was still a golden goose. Just last week, as they were finalizing my promotion, he came up with an idea. The government had moved to limit swipe fees, the charge that credit and debit card transactions incur from retailers. This was good for small businesses, good for consumers, good for the economy as a whole. And bad for banks and financial institutions such as our company, which was going to lose some of its profitability.
But Arnie figured out a way around the new rules. We couldn't charge businesses what we had been, but if we started to charge customers a monthly fee of $2 to continue using their debit and credit cards, we'd break even. I told Arnie that if $2 got us even, $3 gained us an extra 50% on top of that. He tried to brush that aside; it was the first real resistance I'd ever gotten from him on improving one of his ideas.
I intended to throw his idea to the bosses that night at the party. I brought him along for the technical song and dance; I could pitch better than Nolan Ryan at the height of his game, but when it came to the details, even if they couldn't make sense of what the hell he was saying, the execs knew the difference between me spit-balling numbers and him giving them the real ones.
At least, that had been the plan, anyway. When I heard Alice talking, and the intermittent breaks in her voice, I knew that wasn't going to happen. “Cliff had a heart attack. That's why he didn't show this morning. He was dead by the time his daughter found him.”
Cliff Pembroke was a fat bastard, as mean as he was drunk, and sloppier even than that. The only surprise was that Cliff hadn't dropped dead choking on a whole hock of beer-battered ham years before. But the fact that he was in vaguely the same generation as the executive vice presidents meant their heads were jammed fully into their navels, and were going to stay there until morning, or they crawled into a bottle, whichever came first. I could have shown them a perpetual motion blowjob machine and they still would have found fault with its inability to counteract their mortality.
I didn't see Daria, though she was supposed to be here. I didn't allow myself to worry too much about that; she was probably around, lurking in the shadows.
What I did see was a red head hanging off Richard Morgan's arm. A red head ten years younger than his wife. F. She was vibrant, energetic, with a warmth that made her a campfire around which all of Richard's usual hangers-on gathered instead. And he didn't give a damn. Not in the least. He seemed to tolerate her, because she kept his usual parasites too preoccupied to try to pick the scraps from his teeth, but he didn't even care enough to feign interest in her- which meant he wasn't planning to sleep with her later. Seemed like a criminal waste of talent.
People drank to excess. I held the same watered-down rum and Coke in my hand, but I didn't drink it- mostly because it was watered down, but also because I didn't want any part in the revelry. And that was when Richard found me, standing in his boardroom, looking out the window. “It's nice to see I'm not the only man who doesn't feel the need to drown his dread. The reaper takes his due, on his day. Fearing it only makes us weaker.”
He touched my shoulder. Amongst friends, and equals, it was a gesture of kindness, and care. From an employer to an employee, it was a gesture of dominance; he touched me because he could, because I wouldn't do a damned thing to stop him. “You're the new AVP in finance, right? What was the name, Zane?” So was that.
“Dane,” I corrected him, and met his gaze full on.
A little smile cracked from beneath his stoic visage. “I may seem callous. But no one here is mourning Cliff. This is all self-indulgence. George is picturing himself in a coffin. Alice is obsessed with her empty home and her similarly empty womb. Allistair's worrying over his empty bed- at least he had been, until he passed out- which is more than a little ironic, given that he came with one woman and groped another. Of course, the one he came with was a groupie; as soon as he was out she wouldn't let go of my arm until she had to pee. You should take that as a lesson. At this level, everyone is out for themselves. This is a shark tank; if for a second you're not one of the apex predators, you're prey. And there’s no honor amongst carnivores.”
“I gotta say, Rich,” I could barely make out George's voice around his slur, “this is one of your better parties, and certainly your best birthday, ever.” He wanted to come into the conference room, but the doorway was the only thing keeping him off the floor.
Richard let go of my shoulder, shuddered, and turned. “You're only saying that because you aren't the only one who's embarrassingly drunk.”
“And you're only saying that because you aren't,” George said, chancing his feet and falling forward, and clapping his brother on the cheek harder probably than intended. “It wouldn't kill you to lighten up a little. It's a party.”
“It's a bacchanalia of fear, self-loathing, and guilt.”
“So wouldn't that make it your kind of party?” George asked, then grinned.
Richard put his shoulder under George's arm. “Some of us have to be respectable come the morning. Excuse us,” he said to me, then helped his brother out of the room.
That made me wonder where my own wunderkind had gotten to. I found Arnie in the executive lobby conference room, shooting heroin into one of the Administrative AVPs’ feet. “Jesus, Arnie.”
“It's a party,” he slurred. “But you got a second?”
He led me out of the room, and into somebody's office. He was silent for a good long while, getting up his balls to speak. “I need to be my own man,” he finally said. “Look, I don't care that you've taken credit for my ideas. That's not what I'm talking about. My ideas were only so good. Before you came along to sell them, I was ignored in my position, for years. And thanks to you, I've been noticed. But I want them to be my ideas again. You've learned a lot from me, and I've learned a lot from you, too. I think I can sell ideas as well as you can create them. I've thought of you as a friend for a long time, and despite the fact that I had to get ploughed to get up my nerve to say this to you, I think you know what's right, and that you'll help me get to where you are- especially now that you're in a position to help. And it might not hurt, if you started letting people know you've had a silent partner all along, somebody who didn't get as much of the glory or accolades, but maybe deserves them.” I barely heard that last little bit, because he was in the process of passing out onto a leather couch.
That wasn't good. It was going to need to be dealt with. I looked at the pillow on the other end of the couch, and wondered if I could use it to smother him. And had he had any heroin? People would buy that he ODed; but if he was just drinking there was no way people would swallow him suffocating in an office. Regardless, it was a stupid idea. Witnesses milling around. In God knows whose office- which might have a camera in it. Impulsiveness is never wise, particularly as regards homicide.
Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Banksters is available for purchase.
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