hammer vs anvil

Geoduck

2011-11-29T22:57:00.002-06:00

Pack your Pokédex, your Master Balls,
Your Antidotes,
And luck!
We go afield to catch the famous,
Some say squamous,
Geoduck!
We'll knock his health points down, and throw the ball,
Soon he will be
My pawn.
With Geoduck on our side, Fire-type defenders
Shall be rendered
Dead and gone.

...

I really think you should have told me
That it's not a
Pokémon.

Godwin Slaw

2011-11-11T22:12:00.006-06:00

     Hammer's grill sits in a glass on the table. It is sitting in some sort of denture cleaning solution, and little bits of foul-smelling purple glitter are being carried to the surface of the fluid by the effervescent bubbles. Hammer's grill is an awful thing.
     Anvil resolves to pitch the whole thing, glass and all, into the trash as soon as Hammer's back is turned.

ANVIL: Hey... what's that, Hammer?

     Anvil points at something in the corner of the room. Hammer turns to look, but looks back in time to catch Anvil throwing the grill in the trash. Hammer is indignant.

HAMMER: Dammit, Anvil. What the hell? That was my best grill, dude.

A: Sorry, Hammer. That thing was stinking up the whole room. All those bubbles in that denture cleaner... rubbing all along the... whatever it is that your grill was made of... absorbing its foul essence through contact, only to burst to the surface and release noxious vapors into the atmosphere...

     Anvil spends a few quality seconds trying to think about it without vomiting. The air in the room now smells like a profane mixture of Pine-Sol and fried onions, with a hint of both boiled broccoli and skunk.

A: Man, that thing is eating a hole in the trash bag. Seriously, can't you buy a grill that isn't imported from Hell? That thing is eldritch. That grill is a perfect example of why humanity cannot be allowed to live. It's like an Aesop's fable, some Brothers Grimm shit.

     Anvil warms visibly to his insult, leaning forward and beginning to gesticulate.

A: The start of the story, the start of the whole hideous mess, is that you are warned not to mess with powers beyond your comprehension by an elderly witch. Naturally, your tragic flaw is hubris, so you immediately invent this fucking grill. To build it, you willfully use parts that were scattered to the four corners of the world by the gods to prevent exactly this occurrence. Yada yada, hero's journey, the grill is cast into Mount Doom, and the moral of the story is, fuck you and your grill too.

     Hammer just sort of stares at Anvil. Eyes slightly unfocused, eyebrows slightly raised.

H: What?

A: I, uh, sorry. Yeah, that was a little much. Look, I'll buy you some rhinestones later and we can glue a set of dentures to 'em.

H: Yeah! We'll put the rhinestones in a plastic bag, cover the dentures in rubber cement, and drop 'em in.

A: It's like Shake 'n Bake - and I helped!

H: OK, Anvil. I think we're getting way off topic. Didn't we have something new and internet-related to discuss? Ah, yes, here I have my notes: "Discuss Godwin's Law and its use on the internet." Who wrote these notes, Anvil? This isn't my handwriting. Why do I have notes telling me what to do?

A: Ahhh, yes, the topic. Godwin's Law. What is Godwin's Law? Godwin's Law is a cute little statement formulated by some guy I don't remember the name of, that states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

H: Anvil, if I didn't write this, and I've never seen this piece of paper before, why did I look in my pocket for it expecting it to be there? Anvil... why do I have notes telling me... to have a discussion with you? What the hell is going on? Is any of this even real??

A: So the gimmick is, someone's going to compare something to Hitler in an argument on the internet. The joke is that it will always happen, given a discussion of infinite length. OK. That's fine. It's both trite and pointless to point it out habitually, but it's fine. It's probably true. However, what is really bad is what it's turned into on the internet.

H: Anvil! Seriously, man! I'm freaking out! Why is this...

     Hammer trails off. He crumples in a heap on the floor, and Anvil continues, tossing the needle in the trash can.

A: Godwin's Law has been transformed. Its original intent was a gentle, but general, reminder not to cavalierly compare trivial unpleasantness to the Holocaust. Now, on the internet, basement-dwelling nerds treat it as an argument finisher. Anyone who mentions Hitler or Nazis immediately has someone respond "GODWINSLAW! You lose argument!"
     When did this come about? Who thought this was a good idea?
     Godwin's Law was originally kind of a remark about bad argument. It reminds people that the Holocaust is a really major thing, and comparing little things to it is probably a bad idea. It's a really bad idea for the additional reason that doing it is inflammatory; your opponent in a debate is probably not going to respond favorably to you comparing something (that he's probably defending) to Adolf Hitler.
     But now, Godwin's Law is being misused, and in fact furthers bad argument. Now, anyone who makes a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler in any way - justified or not - is dogpiled by the kind of smug internet nerds that we all know and lov... uh... that we all know.
      "You've heard of a little thing called Godwin's Law, right?" "GODWIN MUCH?" and other extremely clever variants of this.
     The problem is, now people on the internet can use this to avoid reading or responding to an argument posited by the other person, because that person happened to break a completely arbitrary internet rule when making an assertion. As I said, it furthers bad argument.
     Moreover, it's still not OK to argue ad hominem just because you've slapped a cute name like "Godwin's Law" on it. You're not really making an assertion when you misuse Godwin's Law in this way, and you haven't made a point. You are using a meme to argue.

H: This makes you an idiot.

     Hammer, unnoticed by Anvil, has awakened. He chimes in suddenly to bark this sentence with venom.

H: Using an internet meme to prove a point is a stupid action. And not thinking about things before you respond to them does a disservice to everyone involved. I know it's just arguing on the internet, but wouldn't it be nice to at least pretend everyone's maybe out to earnestly exchange views? I have a proposal.

A: By all means, expound, Hammer. Did you enjoy your nap?

H: When Hitler or Nazis are mentioned in any way in a debate, Godwin's Law is invoked, and the target is said to lose the debate. How about this. This is an open suggestion to anyone and everyone. I propose Godwin Slaw. It operates very simply.

Godwin Slaw: The first person who mentions Godwin's Law in any way has lost all credibility because invoking it is not an argument!

     How's that? The goal is not to have another quick way to falsely win arguments - the goal is to stop the memetic misuse of Godwin's Law in the same way as Godwin's Law successfully stopped the rampant misuse of unwarranted comparisons to Hitler. It did its job, now let's kill it, because the cure has become the disease.

A: [REDACTED], incidentally, has no interest in trying to take credit for this. We just think that this modern formulation of Godwin's Law is complete shit, and we are trying to counteract it.

H: We're against areas of low information content in discourse, especially if those areas spread memetically.

A: We propose, in the spirit of solely furthering the message, that when Godwin Slaw is invoked, it is invoked necessarily not with that name, but with a name of one's own choosing if one wishes. Preferably alliterative. I'd call it Anvil's Antipode, for example. Look, call it whatever you want, the name isn't important. But this ad hominem Godwin's Law shit has gotta stop.

H: Q. E. D., you fucking goons.

Rap Game

2011-10-27T21:23:00.001-05:00

Hammer: It's H to tha AMMER and I'm all in yo grill!
Spittin' lyrical winnin' with a SICKENIN' skill!
Got my spinnaz and my fo-pound,
homies, forties, shorties on the town,
If lyrics is a car, got a LEARNER'S PERMIT to kill!

Anvil: ... Look, Hammer, I love this "gangsta deconstruction" thing you've been doing for the past few weeks. Really I do. It's like practice for Halloween. You dress up as whatever the fuck that is, and I go as the guy who tries not to kill you.

Hammer adjusts his two crooked baseball caps, listening. His grill, due to insufficient mouth space, says "HAMME" when he smiles, and glistens with things like cheap imported rhinestones and lost sequins from hooker dresses. Hammer's grill is decorated with the kind of shiny objects that get magpies bullied by other magpies.

Hammer manages an expression of magnificent, thoroughly street disdain as Anvil continues.

A: But seriously, Hammer. "If lyrics is a car, got a LEARNER'S PERMIT to kill?"

H: Yo, word. Ya heard.

A: No, seriously. Think about what you're saying. OK, I get it. You're not saying license to kill. You're saying learner's permit.

H: I'm just comin' up, Anvil. I'm not yet an O. G. I only have a learner's permit to kill. You mad?

A: Right, OK. A learner's permit to kill. But what does that have to do with lyrics being a car?

H: Dammit, sometimes you is so mothafuckin' obtuse, dog. Obviously you need at least a learner's permit to drive a car legally. You gotta admit, that shit is cogent.

Hammer folds his arms and nods sagely, confident he has won. He even throws a little improvised gang sign, which looks suspiciously like a butterfly shadow puppet.

Anvil does not strangle Hammer, which is a win of sorts, albeit largely one on Anvil's part against his own instincts.

A: Listen. I get it. A learner's permit. For a car. But does that mean you ... drive... murder? Or that you're just in training to kill lyrics? Is this manslaughter, of the lyrical vehicular variety? Are you saying that you can only drive rap lyrics when you are supervised?

H: Look, it rhymed, dog. It rhymed. Why you gotta hate? And back the fuck up off me, son!

Hammer, Anvil realizes, has a valid point; with every rhetorical question he has leaned closer and closer to Hammer's begrilled visage. He relaxes, but he has a disgusted look.

A: Hammer... that grill of yours stinks, man.

H: I know! I don't know how to take it out!

ENDGAME, Inc.: Shooting

2011-07-27T23:23:00.983-05:00

::holy shit do you expect me to read all this

June 23. It was a sunny day, which felt inappropriate. June 23 was a rainy day, as far as Jim Houston was concerned, no matter what the sun and the clouds said.

Remembering the same sort of sunny day, years ago, he lifted the freshly poured shot glass on the corner of his hardwood desk. His office was fine, decked out to his preference; hardwood this and burnished brass that. Very well-kept. He'd gotten quite good at keeping his home shipshape, over the years. After all, he'd had plenty of time to learn the little cleaning and tidying rituals since...

Since he'd retired.

His hand shook suddenly. He jerked his hand toward his mouth and downed the shot of whisky in a single hasty movement, a marionette with a jittery puppeteer. He winced briefly and set the shot glass down again.

It was all part of the ritual.

He spun the old globe on his desk, slowly, lazily letting his finger trace over the Pacific, before stopping the globe by pressing his fingertip against North America. Jim had crushed Iowa with his carelessness.

He left his finger there a long moment, lost in a bit of reverie. Iowa and its corn fields, its fields of soy. June 23, the sun in a field... He dropped his hand into his lap, then fidgeted idly. The large desk calendar under his elbow was completely unmarked for any day of the month. Retirement, he mused, had a way of doing that to a man's calendar.

Jim Houston sighed heavily. He pulled the handle, tarnished but clean, and the desk drawer slid smoothly open with a sound like a little roll of thunder. In spite of himself, he smiled at this. His smile shocked him even as he felt it appear on his face; it seemed quite untimely.

     He reached in and withdrew the old M1911 from the drawer, closing the drawer with the same sound. He examined the pistol meditatively, rubbing his fingers over the textured grip and testing the hammer with his thumb. The ritual. He knew it was loaded, and he knew the safety was off. There was nobody in the house who could turn this weapon into a danger to themselves, or to him, so he kept it ready to fire for the sake of simple expediency.
     June 23. A rainy fucking day.
     Jim heard a rustling from the bushes outside, through his open window. He wished he'd had another drink, but there was no time now. He aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger.
     All part of the ritual.

     -----

   [six days after the shooting]

     Jim Houston was in a small gray room that was locked from the outside and lit with an incandescent bulb housed in a cone-shaped metal fixture overhead. The sign on the outside of the door said "INTERROGATION" in block letters, and over the word was a one-way mirror so the interrogations could be watched from outside. Jim was dressed in black-and-white stripes, seated at a table across from a squat, cyclopean alien with doughy grayish skin and a single terrifying red eye on a pseudopod instead of a face. Jim took a deep, slow breath, and stared into the Doc's eye.
     "It's been a long time, James." the Doc began. As the Doc did not ever speak audibly, it communicated this to the human by simply transmitting the words that it wished Jim to hear, into the part of Jim's brain that understood language. The Doc also relayed its transmission to the two jailers watching with interest, invisibly, from the other side of the one-way mirror in the door of the interrogation room. They were not aware of this, however; the alien was quite circumspect with its cortical tampering. The guards heard the words and thought that the alien was just talking.
     Jim sighed. His hands were clasped together. He fidgeted repetitively with his thumbs. He nodded. "Yeah, Doc... it's been more than eleven years since I retired from ENDGAME."
     "You know, we do miss you, those of us who are still there from your time. You were a star player."
     "I miss you too! You know those were some of the best years of my life. Working with the company, doing good deeds..."
     The Doc conveyed a bit of amusement as it responded. "And bringing in good cash for doing them."
     Jim, in spite of himself, smiled. Yes, he'd had some good years with the company. And ENDGAME was still taking care of him now. He guessed that was why his old friend, and boss, had pulled the strings to get in here to see him.
     "So." the Doc began, more soberly. "You shot someone at random outside your home. A passerby." Its red eye looked at the man across the table, motionless. Specks of yellowish matter floated in the gel of its eyeball. "Is there something you'd like to explain to me, James? Because we'd very much like to help you."
     Jim shook. His face fell, then a moment later he fell, his face landing in his hands as he crumpled against the table. He sobbed.
   "I know, Jim. I know you haven't really faced it. How could you do this? I know you well, James." the Doc said. The Doc meant this very strongly. A mind-reader's friend is a very well-known friend, even if the mind-reader's ethics forbid casual forays into the minds of others, as the Doc's personal moral code did. The Doc picked up plenty of things nonetheless. "You are no random killer. Whatever stress you're under, I think we're speaking of serious mitigating circumstances. And I think we can help you. But I need to understand. Will you let me learn the truth?"
     The Doc was asking Jim to submit to its mind probe. Not a probe involving discomfort of any kind, but a probe that would immediately illuminate Jim's entire mental state with regard to the shooting, as well as anything related. No, it was not a discomforting mental probe, but it was certainly an intrusive and invasive one, even if consented to. Jim had seen it done more than once by the alien across the table during his years with the company.
     Jim's head came up off his hands. He sat up in the chair and stared at the Doc levelly. "I'm sorry, Doc, but no. No, no, I'm not letting you inside my head, not like that. Not that way." He stared at his hands. "I know you're trying to help me, Doc. I'm sorry."
     The Doc was not an unethical telepath. Its ethics were strict because its power in the minds of others was great; greater than it could ever safely let any person learn. It would not pry into the mind of its old friend, even though the sudden revelation of every last relevant fact in Jim's thoughts would almost certainly tell it what it needed to know to bargain effectively for Jim's freedom.
     However, while it was not an unethical telepath, it had once been a very good friend of James Houston. They shared a bond of friendship still. And a telepath as strong as the Doc did indeed pick up a thing or two from a friend. The Doc picked up a couple tidbits, prominent fragments standing out in Jim's consciousness. Those fragments were:

     Cecilia.

   and a feeling of empty repetition, a shapeless feeling, like a human hamster in an unstopping and uncaring wheel, running endlessly for years with no sleep and no chance of release and not even a person to watch over him, the worst part, not even a person's help but simply the presence of another to witness the quiet fact of his existence, to be close

     Cecilia.

   The Doc stood up, as nearly as it could do so given its lack of proper legs. It moved away from the table where its old friend sat. Jim sat in stripes and salt-and-pepper beard, looking very old as he stared at the Doc wearily. He had no idea that the Doc had learned anything in those few moments, and simply continued, "You understand, don't you? This is..." he choked up, recovered. "You know. It's too personal, Doc. I'm sorry." Jim stood and nodded, slowly and respectfully, to the Doc, as the alien had no hands to shake.
     "Thanks for coming by."

   -----

     [41 years before the shooting]

   Jim leaned forward in his chair. He nodded, smiling thinly. "Yes, I'm really looking forward to it. I feel I've got something great that'll be a true asset to ENDGAME."
     His interviewer, Molly, smiled back at him politely. However, she was not really listening. Rather, she was examining him and his behavior very closely. Something didn't seem right. It was obvious that he was excited about working for the company, and he clearly believed he had some kind of superhuman ability that would benefit ENDGAME, as he'd indicated on the application, but he appeared outwardly to be a completely normal, reasonably fit man in perhaps his late 40s. That wasn't what caught Molly's attention, however; lots of the company's super operatives appeared to be completely human to a casual inspection. What caught her attention was Jim Houston's manner.
     His eyes, while animated, would drift off dejectedly from time to time. His mouth would slacken when he wasn't speaking about the opportunity ENDGAME was giving him, would fail him as he mustered a smile. There was something about the way he'd occasionally sigh quietly, but long, before beginning a new sentence. Yes, underneath a veneer of enthusiasm, she was sure she saw a profound sadness, and an old one. A sadness so old and deep that it was ingrained in him, like grease on a cast-iron skillet. Baked-on melancholy.
     He was wearing a wedding ring, but had identified as unmarried on the application. It struck her suddenly, but leaving her no doubt that it was true: His wife had died, and he had never recovered.
     She realized she was just staring at him when she noticed that he was looking at her blankly, waiting for a response. She opened her mouth, closed it, and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She smiled awkwardly. "James - can I ask you something? It looks like we're missing some data from when we processed your application. How old are you?"
     "Well, Molly, that is a great question." he said, giving that smile again, tinged with sadness. "I left it blank because the application system called my answer invalid.   I'm two hundred eighty-seven years old. And please...
   "I'd prefer to be called Jim."

     -----

     [61 years before the shooting]

     "Oh, James, it's such a beautiful day!" Cecilia beamed, her arms around his right arm. She was leaning against him from the passenger seat. Jim took his eyes off the scenery for a moment and looked at her, smiling back. Her cheer was always infectious. "I'm so happy."
     "Me too, Cee. I haven't been this happy in..." he trailed off as he looked into her eyes. "Years."
   A couple hundred years.
     He leaned over and kissed her quickly, then looked back at the road, steering with his left hand. His wedding ring glinted in the sun. Impulsively, he looked back at her, and he grinned again. "You know, Cee... I think we should stay married." She laughed and struck his arm with her fists, and he pretended she was protesting as he went on, mock-seriously. He watched out in front of the car as he spoke, nodding earnestly. "No, no, now, I know what you're thinking. I know we were planning on having a messy, heart-wrenching divorce."
     "I was looking forward to a bitter, drawn-out back-and-forth over who got to keep the big screen!" she interrupted. He turned to her and she was looking back, her blue-gray eyes wide, seemingly completely serious. He just laughed.
     "But really. You're beautiful, you make me laugh... I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life... let's just... stay together." He gave the road a look as he drove, then turned back to her.
     Her smile softened as she looked back at him. "Yeah, James." she said. She shook her hair down, dirty blonde in big, lazy curls spilling onto her shoulders, and tightened her arms around his arm as she pulled herself close. She pressed her cheek against his sleeve as she spoke, trailing off. "We'll see how it goes for a few decades before we make any rash decisions..." Cecilia seemed at peace. She sighed very softly.
     Jim looked down at her, nestled against him. He took a moment to enjoy the day. Windows down, warm breeze. Sunny everywhere. Sunday drive down a nearly deserted county road, endless field of sun-baked wheat on the right and a never-ending line of cool trees on the left. The shine of Cee's hair in the light matched the field, and all was perfect.
     He drove in silence for a time, as his wife had clearly fallen asleep on his arm. She snored suddenly, then jumped without opening her eyes as though startled by the noise. She relaxed again; Jim knew from experience she'd slept through it completely.
     Jim drove on.

     -----

   [41 years before the shooting]

     "Have you got a knife handy?" Jim asked. Molly raised her eyebrows. She picked up her handbag, rummaged in it for a moment. She withdrew a small knockoff Swiss army knife, cheap and almost never-used, but with its plastic body an attractive iridescent blue--the only reason she'd bought it in the first place. She ran her fingers over the corkscrew, the nail file, and the weird little plastic toothpick before using her fingernail to extend the small blade. She handed the pocketknife to him, handle first.
     "Thanks," he said. He looked at the small contraption in his hand for a moment, then closed the blade attachment, opening instead the nail file. "You don't use this part, do you?" he asked.
     "No, I get my nails done at a place."
     "Good." Jim said, then he began rubbing the little nail file back and forth against his forearm, pressing hard. His fingers were tight around the plastic as he scraped the nail file against his skin as fast as he could. The air filled with a strange gritty noise, like a penny being dragged over concrete. He pressed harder with the file, and though it pressed into his skin deeply, the surface of his arm was completely unmarred by the friction.
     After a few moments he stopped, blew on the file, and handed it to her. The surface of the file was worn nearly smooth where it had rubbed against his skin. "I didn't want to ruin your knife," he said almost apologetically, "but I could tell that you don't use the file." He rubbed tiny metal fragments off his arm with his other hand, looking at her calmly.
     She looked at the file for a long moment, then closed it and opened the knife attachment again, carefully, with her fingernail. "Jim," she said, eyebrows raised. "These pocketknives... are cheap. I'll have ENDGAME buy me a new one. OK?" She gave it back to him firmly, again holding it by the blade.
    He nodded, looked down at the shiny blade, then back at his interviewer. He slowly raised the pocketknife toward his face, pointing the blade at his left eyeball. Molly watched his eye, dark brown, looking unflinchingly at the blade two inches away. He blinked.
     He stabbed the little blade into his eyeball with all his might. A very strange noise resulted: a sort of metallic crunch. His interviewer recoiled and screamed inarticulately, rising half out of her chair as her arms came up to cover her face, an instinct she simply couldn't ignore. Jim waited until she sat down again and composed herself before handing the blade back to her.
     The blade was covered in tears from Jim's eye, bent diagonally, and covered in rough scratches where it had ground against the surface of the eyeball. Jim blinked a few times, but his eyes were both completely intact.
     "I can't be hurt. I don't feel physical pain." he said after a moment. He sounded resigned. "I don't get sick. I can't even be poisoned." He shook his head slowly. "It seems that I'm in this life for the long haul." He gave Molly a brittle smile. "I don't really have any combat skills. I've never even fired a gun. But I'm sure I can help your company out somehow."
     "Yes, Jim." Molly said, her formality recovered completely as she stood. She extended a hand. Jim stood too, and shook it. "Yes, indeed. We'll be in touch."

-----

     [34 years before the shooting]

     Jim Houston, longtime ENDGAME operative, codename Jim Steel, shook hands in a shady bar with a shady man, and they both took a stool. Bearded and long-haired, with craggy tanned skin, the guy looked like he'd seen more years in a punishing world than Jim had. The man, Jim had been told, went only by the alias "Lotto."
     "Heard a lot about you," the man said tersely. "Doing dirty work for the ring. Hustling, making it up the chain. Lot of guys upstairs are impressed with you, Fred." Jim had given them a false name and identification, supplied by ENDGAME, and had otherwise been left to his own devices.
   Jim nodded. "Thanks, sir. Yes, I'm just trying to make my way, you know? After my wife died, not much use taking the straight and narrow. Might as well take the cash instead." He smiled grimly. Lotto turned away, downed a shot off the bar, wiped his mouth, and turned back to Jim.
     "Yeah, Fred, you got lotsa promise. But here's what I don't get. You'll rob a place. Hold up a cashier at gunpoint. Or hold a kid for ransom. You'll break in, to a fucking police station, and destroy records and evidence to get our guys off, and nobody sees ya, and the cops got shit! More than once! You got stones the size of a truck, Fred!" He laughed, braying, and slapped Jim on the back as though they'd known each other for years.
     Lotto's breath was foul as he leaned close. A stink of liquor, cigarettes and general vice. He went on, the voice low now, the eyes questioning. "But... you won't kill? You won't kill. You won't kill a rival drug dealer selling to high school kids. You won't kill the scum of the earth. You won't kill cops, junkies, nobody. Listen, Fred. Ol' Lotto's telling you this as a friend."
     Jim found himself doubting that assertion.
     "You're building a glass ceiling for yourself. You wanna go up in this business? You gotta do whatever it is... that you're told to do."
     Lotto reached into his old leather jacket, withdrew a small pistol, and set it on the bartop with a quiet wooden thud. The bartender, behind the counter, looked at the scene with burly disinterest with his one good eye. The other was covered by a black eyepatch. It was very much that kind of bar.
   "Things upstairs are kind of coming to a head about you, Freddy. They wanna know they can count on you. They're asking me and my associates, are you in or out?"
     Oh, no. This was supposed to be a big drug deal. What was happening? Jim maintained his calm, but he could tell things had taken a turn for the unplanned, and for the worst.
     Lotto pushed the gun toward Jim rudely. "Take it." he snapped, in a tone that permitted Jim no option but to take it indeed. Lotto's face cracked into a sudden, unpleasant smile. "Now, Jim."
     Jim?
     Lotto's smile turned nastier still. "Yeah. That's right. Jim." He dragged the name out maliciously, enjoying Jim's sudden look of fear. "Yup, Jim Steel. ENDGAME. You guys contracted to the Feds?" His face contorted in rage. "Do you think I am a fucking idiot?" he screamed, standing up and shoving over his barstool. All the shady men in the bar were standing as well, having produced either knives or handguns. They stood silently, watching the scene. The bartender walked slowly around the bar and stood close by, hands folded over his belly.
   "Bring him out, boys!" Lotto shouted. From the back room, two men emerged holding a struggling boy by the arms. He could not have been more than eight years old, and looked terrified. "Now, Jim," Lotto continued, his voice threatening, loud in the close air of the bar. "You got two options here. You shoot the kid, we let you walk. That's right. You walk right outta here alive. But!"
     "We make sure it gets out that you're ENDGAME. And all these fine witnesses here--" he gestured around at the armed criminals-- "attest to the fact that you used, deplorably, I might add--" he sneered-- "some young kid off the street as a human shield! To protect your worthless ass after you blew the op! So you live. You live in infamy, maybe in prison. And ENDGAME goes under, because word gets out that they hire psycho chickenshits! ...Who would let a kid take a bullet for 'em."
     He lowered his voice menacingly. The men with weapons moved closer. "Or... you refuse. You refuse like a cunt. To shoot this kid to save your hide." He walked over to the captive boy and smacked him in the side of the head with the butt of another pistol.
     "So we shoot the kid, and gladly. Then we overpower you, and easily. And we put our guns away and tie you up and torture you to death with knives. And it takes three days. We close the bar." Lotto walked back over to Jim, his eyes narrowed. Jim just watched the criminal's face, trying to come up with a plan, saying nothing.
     "We close the bar for three days. 'Renovations.'" he smirked. "And we give you water, keep you goin'. We'll torture your ass in shifts. And by the end we'll have little piles of different parts of your skin in little red, reeking corners of the room." The captive boy howled in terror, and someone clapped a hand over his mouth. "And your fondest wish will be a bullet in your brain. Jim Steel. You traitorous piece of shit. ENDGAME." Lotto spat on the already-dirty floor of the bar. "What's your super power? You Spider-Man? Your pussy webs aren't gonna save you, Jim Steel. And I don't care how strong you are. There's eight of us and one of you.
     "So what's it gonna be? You gonna save yourself? Asshole. You gonna save yourself and shoot this kid... or are we gonna skin you alive?"
     Jim hesitantly picked the pistol up off the bar. Lotto grinned, enjoying this as only a true misanthropist could, and stood out of the way so Jim could get a clear shot at the kid. "Yeah, good man. Good man. You ain't as stupid as you look. Save your skin."
     But the bartender with the eyepatch was not fooled.
     As Jim stood and raised the gun, he pivoted and raised his arms, leveling it at Lotto's greasy head. Just as swiftly, the bartender stepped up behind Jim, grabbing him with an arm around the chest and viciously stabbing him below the ribs with a serrated knife. He had been ready for this. The possibility had occurred to him that Jim might make an exception here to his refusal to kill the scum of the earth. The bartender expected that he would simply twist the knife a quarter-turn in Jim's back. Perhaps a half-turn, if this Jim Steel character decided to get squirrelly. Following this knife-twisting, the man with the eyepatch had confidence that the torture would proceed as planned.
     What could not have been predicted by the man with the knife, of course, was what actually happened. What happened was that the knife, instead of going in as it had done to perhaps a baker's dozen other kidneys, made a scraping-metal grinding noise and came back with the tip bent. The bartender brought it up to his face and stared, agog.
     During the moment where everyone was stunned, Jim struck. He launched himself bodily against one of the men holding the boy, and pulled the child clear of his other captor's arms. Lifting the boy up against his chest, and enfolding him in his arms, Jim turned and simply ran through the door of the bar, turning slightly to strike it with his shoulder. It burst into wooden fragments.
     Several of the men found their wits quickly, and their bullets bounced off him and took chips out of the floor. The man Jim had knocked over with the tackle, however, took a long time to get up. It was discovered later that he had sustained several cracked ribs when Jim Steel had landed on him.

     The captive boy, an orphan named Logan, had been abducted off the street earlier that night by drug ring thugs wearing ski masks, to use as a pawn in the confrontation with the undercover agent. Thanks to Jim's actions, Logan lived, and soon enough was placed with foster parents.
     Jim returned to ENDGAME with his report, a blown op and his undercover time seemingly gone to naught. He learned, however, that his meeting at the bar with Lotto was more portentous than he'd understood at the time. The bartender who had tried to stab him was actually the bar's owner, and a middle-management thug in the drug ring.
     He'd been captured because he had rashly opted to attempt to chase Jim and Logan, and was pulled over almost immediately for speeding on his motorcycle, which had five ounces of very illegal cocaine--and a tiny glass vial full of a gray powder, the even more illegal Eldust--stashed in a compartment under the seat. They call this, in law enforcement, a lucky break. At present, he was telling lots of stories, and listing lots of names, to the police.
     The undercover operation was deemed a success. One of many successes, for the unkillable Jim Steel. At times, he felt almost fulfilled in his position at ENDGAME. For days at a time, Jim could almost forget that evening of June 23, all those years ago.

   -----

     [61 years before the shooting]

     "Wake up, Cee."
     Jim shook Cecilia's shoulder gently. She made a displeased noise and leaned into his arm a little more, not opening her eyes. He sighed, shook his head, and reluctantly shook her again. "This is all very endearing, Cee, but I gotta get out here and get gas."
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. She blinked a few times, then smiled radiantly as she awoke fully and realized who she was looking at. "Oh good. It wasn't a dream!" she said. The corner of Jim's mouth turned up.
     "You're real sweet, babe. You know?" He kissed her. He pulled away, but she kissed him instead. She put her hands on his chest.
     "Yes, I know. It's why you love me. Go get gas."
     Duly dismissed, he got out of the car and pumped some gas into the tank. The sun was setting, but it was a beautiful evening. Perfect for visiting the drive-in once it got a little darker. As the pump made its whooshing noise, Jim contemplated an upcoming evening of making out in the car with Cecilia and occasionally glancing at the movie screen. He couldn't imagine a better night out.
     He went inside the little gas station and paid the girl at the register. "Pump three," he said pointlessly. Of course it was, since his was the only car and it was obvious which pump he had parked next to, but he said it nonetheless. She handed him his change and said good night.
     He walked back out to the car and got inside. When he started the car, someone spoke to him. "Hey, pal." There was a hunched man in a dirty greenish T-shirt standing next to the car, looking in the window. The man drew a gun and pointed it inside, gesturing with it erratically, and generally giving every appearance of being a desperate drug addict near death.
   "Why don't ya just gimme your cash, now, pal, and I can put this thing away, alright? Alright pal? Gimme the money."
     It had been many years now since Jim Houston had been afraid of a gun. "Relax, babe." he said tersely to Cecilia, never taking his eyes off the gun that was waving around in his car. Jim was not afraid of a gun for himself, but the woman he loved most in the world was sitting in the seat next to him, all too vulnerable to bullets.
     "Hey, buddy." he said softly, looking up into the crazed eyes of, yes, definitely a desperate drug addict. "You really wanna do this here? Come on, brother. I'll give you five bucks and you can get some chow, cool down. Alright? I'm reaching into my pocket. Getting five bucks. See? 's yours, man, take it." He proffered the bill between his thumb and forefinger, dangling his hand out the window. "I'm not upset that you threatened my life. But you have got to put that gun away, and my wife and I have got to go now. So take this money, get a cheeseburger, and have a nice life. Sounds good?"
     The addict reached out with his free hand, which wobbled a bit back and forth before snatching the bill from Jim's fingers. "Yeah... thanks. Uh, thanks." He wandered off aimlessly for a minute, looking at the gun, then at the five dollars, his gaze alternating between his hands as he shambled unsteadily. Jim and Cecilia both watched him go.
     "Great." Jim said, his mood darkened. He pushed the button and rolled up the window.
     "That was pretty good, honey." Cecilia said, eyebrows raised. "You talked him down like a professional." She smiled, obviously flooded with relief from tension. She inhaled, then exhaled slowly. Her breath shook. "Let's just get to the drive-in. That could've been a lot worse."
     "Yeah, babe." Jim went to start the car.
     Abruptly, the driver's side window broke, scattering bits of glass all over him. Cecilia covered her face with her arms and recoiled. What had broken the window? Jim looked to his left and saw nobody out the window, but an instant later the junkie just appeared, already screaming in insane rage.
     Eldust. Why, why, why couldn't it just be meth? Jim avoided looking into the man's eyes.
     "You talked me down motherfucker, like a real professional, alright, motherfucker," he raved, pointing the gun directly at the side of Jim's head now. Bizarrely, in spite of his insane screaming, the junkie's aim was suddenly steady and accurate. And how had he nearly quoted what Cecilia had said, even though he couldn't have heard it? Eldust was scary as hell.
     "Well you know what? I'm a professional motherfucker, motherfucker! And what I need is about nine hundred dollars because I need about THIS MUCH Eldust" the junkie snapped his hand in front of his face, miming with his thumb and forefinger a distance of about two inches. He obviously was indicating that he wanted a little pile of grayish, glittering dust on his dirty coffee table made of glass with a square ashtray on it made of gray plastic, and Jim knew that the addict meant to say that what he wanted was enough Eldust to make a pile precisely that size, which
     Oh dear, Jim thought faintly. Is he talking?
     He was still talking. "Yeah, Jimmy. Jim Beam. You mother bastard. I'm talking. But I ain't shooting. I ain't gonna shoot YOU." the junkie spat. Jim realized that the Eldust addict was leaning into the car, through the broken window, his elbows on the door, and when the junkie spat, he spat directly onto Jim. This snapped him out of it slightly. Whatever Eldust did to people, it seemed... contagious. Jim was looking into the terrible, terrible eyes of a murderous addict on Eldust, and he began for the first time to feel concern for his own safety, in addition to his wife's.
     The addict sneered, distorted, a caricature of a human. "I'm infectious, fuck fuck. Yeah, worry. You scurry, for his own safety! His wife! His life!"
     Jim suddenly opened his mouth to speak for the first time since the window had broken. He was spurred on by something he didn't recognize. "Look, Eddie! You know exactly how much money I have in my pocket! You can smell it, or whatever!" He was almost shouting, frantic. He somehow knew the man's name was Eddie, and he knew with the same certainty that something terrible was impending. "You know I don't have nearly that much with me! So why don't you just take what I've got, and we'll go home, OK? I'm really sorry about all this, Eddie! I'm sorry!"
     Why was he so terrified, so desperate suddenly? He meant every word! He realized that that thought - "he meant every word" - was not his own thought, but Eddie's thought about him.
     The addict jumped back a few inches, and the crazy light receded from his eyes, to be replaced with a sort of sullen, guilty look. "Yeah pal." He dropped the gun, rubbing his wrist absently. Eddie put his hands where the window would've been, palms down. He nodded slowly as he looked into the car at the terrified faces of Jim and Cecilia. "Geeze, pal. Yeah, I forgive you. Christ, I'm sorry, you two."
     Eddie straightened up and, with the same guilty look, stepped away from Jim's window and aimed through the windshield at Cecilia. Of course the gun was in his hand again, suddenly. He spoke loudly so they both could hear. "I'm really sorry about all this, Jim. I'm sorry."
     Jim saw everything in a heightened, slowed, panicked vision, with razor-sharp edges. In desperation, he moved as fast as he had ever moved. He flung one arm in front of his wife's beautiful, precious face - it would not block a bad shot, but it would block a good one. And it was all the time he had. He knew. He knew he had to do something. So he flung his arm in front of his wife's face, a complete last resort, as the junkie fired through the windshield.
     B-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-N-N-N-G-G-G the sound rang out and the muzzle flashed outside the car, the sound cut itself to pieces and reran all the pieces like being gassed at the dentist
   K-E-C-C-H-K-K-K-S-S-S-H-H brilliant shards of windshield glass, spinning through the air, going absolutely everywhere
     P-W-A-A-A-A-N-G metal off metal, the sound rang out as the bullet crawled up to Jim's forearm, a good shot indeed
     CH-H-H-CH-CH-K.
     NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
     NO! NO! NO!

     Jim had blocked the bullet with his arm, but the bullet had struck his arm with massive force, and... his arm, his goddamned granite steel titanium fucking whatever-it-was arm, had struck the bridge of Cecilia's nose with... equal...
     He looked at her, then he looked away. She needed a doctor. That was all he would allow himself to think. He knew what a doctor would say. But he would not allow himself to think it. She needed a doctor.
     As he came to his senses, he saw Eddie, the crazed drug addict, through what would've been the windshield if it hadn't just been shot out. Jim realized that Eddie was quite objectively the worst person to have ever lived on Earth.
     Eddie was laughing. He was laughing because he was a stupid junkie and he had just witnessed, in his withdrawal stupor from his ridiculous, incredibly dangerous, deadly, expensive, life-ruining drug, something that he couldn't possibly have predicted. The woman he shot hadn't died of a bullet, she'd died of her husband's forearm after the forearm deflected the bullet.
     "Crazy world, hey? Like, wow. Can you even deflect a bullet with your forearm?" Eddie resumed laughing, gasping for breath. "Wow, pal. Can you believe that shit?"
     Suddenly, Jim's hand was around his throat. Eddie stopped laughing, and began screaming and panicking, gesticulating worthlessly with his free hand. His other hand still held the gun.
     "You... trash... fucker." Jim spat through gritted teeth. "Do you know who she was to me? Do you know what you did? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID?" He began shaking Eddie back and forth by the neck.
     "Yeah... pal..." Eddie croaked out. Mystified, Jim released his grip slightly, tilted his head almost in wonder, and just looked at the drug addict in his grasp. Eddie continued, the red shade slowly leaving his face. He still had to croak. "You know... You know that I know. I could tell. Like I said, Jim... I'm really sorry about all this."
     Jim nodded, slowly. Then he slammed the Eldust addict who had murdered his wife into the hood of his car and began to choke the life out of him in earnest. This would have proceeded to Jim's intended conclusion but for another gunshot.
    The look on Eddie's face was total shock. His lips moved. "Wha... wha..." he tried to say, but only blood came out. He slid off the hood, and the gun fell from his fingers to the ground, still smoking. He had fired in desperation, still not really understanding, it seemed, that bullets could, and would, bounce off his assailant. With a bloody hole in his chest, Eddie the Eldust addict met his end, bleeding out onto the ground in a parking lot.
     The girl in the gas station ran outside, hair blowing in a sudden breeze. She held her hair against her chest with her arm, looking at the scene in silent horror. Jim looked at the body at his feet, then over at the gas station attendant. She stared back.
     "Walk away." Jim said simply. He got in the car and drove somewhere in the dark, eventually finding himself back at home.
     He buried his wife at dawn on June 24.

   -----

   [11 years before the shooting]

     ENDGAME operative Jim Steel turned to his left and told his driver to wait in the car. He turned around in the passenger seat and gave the same instruction to the two well-armed rookies in suits behind him. This surprised them somewhat, but they were there to carry out Jim's instructions exactly. Jim did things in strange ways, and nobody argued with him.
     Jim stepped out of the car, set his briefcase on the hood, and opened it. He put his standard-issue chromed ENDGAME energy pistol into the case, closed the case again, and put the case back in the car.
   He adjusted his tie grimly and walked into the bank. Several voices screamed immediately, and he turned to his right, where the hostages were being held.
   "Hi folks. I'm Jim. I'm with the FBI." Jim opened his jacket briefly to reveal a gleaming metal badge of some type before closing it again. "And this... this, folks, is not going to happen. Do you get me?"
     He wandered around almost casually in the open, high-ceilinged main room of the bank. Along the wall, there were a few muted screams as the team of bank robbers threatened their hostages. Jim ignored all this, clasping his hands behind his back and speaking aloud to the air as though lecturing to a group of inattentive students.
     "Here's what's going to happen, gang. You're going to throw your guns to me. No, don't throw them, just slide them along the floor to the center of the room. All fifteen of you. Yes, including you four up there." Jim pointed a single accusing finger upward and to his left, without turning around, to the four men in black suits on the upper level that he could not have seen. The men were behind a one-way mirror meant for surreptitious observation of the bank's main floor. They were aiming guns down at the FBI man in the gray suit, and did not expect to be pointed at.
     "Once you've thrown your guns to me, I'd like you to release your hostages. Yes, all of them. Just let them go peacefully out the door. Once all hostages are released and accounted for--" his voice rose-- "and I'll know when we have them all-- the building will be swarmed by SWAT, in bulletproof armor from head to toe, and you all will be taken into custody. Peacefully."
     He stood in the center of the floor, speaking to the rear of the room, ignoring the murmurs of confusion to his right, where all the hostages were, along with most of the robbery crew. The windows were big, and the ceiling lights were off. It was a beautiful mid-morning, and the room was well-lit by the sun. Tiny dust motes danced slowly in sunbeams. Men with guns got shifty.
     After a few moments of near-silence in the big room, he spoke again. "I know what you're thinking. You worthless low-life criminal scum." The mutters increased from his right. He glanced in that direction, and the noise suddenly quieted noticeably.
     "You're thinking, 'What's in it for me? Why should I give up the game when I have all the cards?' Well, that's a good question. You shitheads. You think you've got the hostages. That I'm the FBI negotiator hotshot. I'm gonna try to talk you out of all this, and you're gonna shoot one or more of the twelve perfectly innocent people you are holding on to, maybe shoot me too."
     "Then you're gonna convince one of your innocents to help you open the vault. And you are gonna make off with about..." Jim pretended to think about it, theatrically putting his hand on his chin. "Roughly two million, eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in U.S. currency."
     There was a startled murmur from the rabble to his right. Jim's estimate, not being an estimate at all, had startled the criminals with its accuracy. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw one of the captives, clearly a bank teller by her attire, being restrained with a rough arm around the neck after she attempted to utilize the confusion to escape.
     "Am I right so far?" he asked loudly, letting a sort of bored contempt creep into his voice as quiet resumed. "You fucking low-life criminals are all the same. You think you've got a great operation. You think you've got a great plan. Well you know what? Your plan is a piece of shit, and you all are fucked. Would you like to know why?"
     Jim ignored the increasing movement in the clumps of concerned people - captives and captors alike - to his right. Instead, he turned to his left, away from the robbers with automatic weapons, and shouted. "You, third from the left." He paused. "No, my left. You dumbshit. Just look down your scope. Look down your scope at me. Look very close."
   Jim looked up at the semi-silvered mirror. Slowly, he opened his jacket again, and with his other hand, simply pointed wordlessly to the gleaming insignia on his chest.
     The man with the scoped rifle looked through the scope, thoroughly unnerved that he'd been called out through a one-way mirror. He squinted and examined the insignia. Jim's badge was not an FBI shield at all. Instead, it was a little circle. Inside the circle were two lines, one short, one long. Jim's insignia was a line drawing of a clock, an old analog type, showing a time of 11:55. ENDGAME.
     They were fucked.
     Down on the main floor, Jim closed his suit jacket again, and adjusted his tie as he turned to the main group of bank robbers and their hostages.
     "Don't be alarmed that you've lost contact with your men behind the one-way mirror, gentlemen. They're unharmed." he said, putting his hands behind his back. He saw several criminals rapidly readying their machine guns in a panic, preparing to shoot some hostages.
     "Be alarmed that your fine weaponry is rapidly approaching a temperature of fourteen hundred degrees in your hands."
     There were hoarse screams. Arms released terrified hostages in horror. The captives watched, numbed with confusion and fear, too scared yet to even run. One robber dropped his rifle and hastily kicked it with a steel-toed boot as it began to glow a dull red. Another threw his machine pistol away in desperation, launching it far away from himself almost like a shot put. The clatter of dropped hardware was very loud in the previously quiet room. The air warmed perceptibly.
     In the doorway of the bank, standing in a sunny breeze, a former petty criminal stood. He was no longer a criminal, opting instead to operate on the other side of the law. His ENDGAME, Inc. codename was Entropy, and increasing molecular motion in solid objects was a modest fraction of his capabilities. His arms had been outstretched for the past few moments, but he let them fall to his sides suddenly. The guns on the floor cooled.
     The psychic in the car-- the driver, codename Indra's Net-- had just informed Entropy that no criminal in the building currently controlled a weapon. Just as Indra's Net had been informing Jim of the positions and numbers of his adversaries in the blown bank robbery.
     The expected $2,850,000 figure from the bank's vault, however, was good, old-fashioned intel, which Jim had briefed himself on during the drive over. Not everything had to be fireworks.

     The police that Jim had promised escorted the bank robbers out one by one to book them. The four men on the balcony were dragged out instead; one of ENDGAME's normal operatives had vented knockout gas into the third floor, acting on Jim's prearranged code phrase, "Am I right so far?"
     Jim made sure the hostages were unhurt. Everything was fine. He adjusted his suit jacket and turned to leave, when he heard a scream behind him. He whipped around to see that one of the few remaining criminals had desperately scooped up a pistol from the floor. The robber aimed the pistol at his own head, and his hand trembled. It was this or prison. Two officers immediately trained their weapons on him and prepared to fire.
     Jim rushed over and simply clamped his thumb over the pistol barrel. "No! Nobody's dying here today." he said. To his relief, the gun came away in his hand after a couple of tense moments, and the man was hauled away.

     Later that day, after making his report, Jim walked into the Doc's office unannounced and set his energy pistol and ENDGAME badge on the desk.
     The Doc's red eye focused on Jim intensely. "Why?" it asked simply.
     "I know we had it handled, Doc... but you didn't need me. You don't need me now. ENDGAME doesn't need me now." Jim's voice broke suddenly. "I'm old, Doc. Those four goons on the third floor were set to spray the entire room with gunfire! What if the gas hadn't worked right? What if someone had gotten shot before the guns got too hot? One of those clowns got a gun - and he tried to shoot himself rather than face the judge!"
     "James," the Doc began.
     "No, Doc. No. I can't go on here, bulletproof Jim Steel, making sure nobody dies. Because someday... someday I won't be able to do it. Something's going to go wrong and someone's going to die because of me. And... I can't live with it, Doc.
     "I can't do this anymore. I'm out. That's it. I'm out. Consider me retired."
     He walked out of ENDGAME HQ forever. His former coworkers saw tears in his eyes, but didn't know why.
   It was later that year on June 23 that Jim Houston, retired ENDGAME operative, started his yearly ritual.

      -----

     [eight days after the shooting]

     Jim Houston again found himself in the room labeled INTERROGATION. He wondered just how easy it was for the Doc to pull all these strings. He sighed, and leaned back in the chair slightly, waiting.
     The Doc entered the room with a small plastic bag held in a pseudopod. The Doc threw the bag on the table, and the pseudopod withdrew, rejoining its main body mass.
     In the bag in front of Jim was a large-caliber handgun round, covered in dried blood.
   "This is the bullet, James," the Doc said unnecessarily. "This is the bullet from your gun that killed someone outside your window."
     The bullet had clearly suffered some sort of impact with something much more resilient than a human body. It was squashed completely flat on one side, and covered in scratches as though it had been roughly filed.
     "But this bullet bounced off you first."
   Jim just groaned, an almost animal sound of despair.
     "The ritual, James?" The look from Jim across the table was suddenly hostile. "I'm sorry. I had Murph take a look at your gun. I'm sorry to intrude on your life this way. I needed to understand. I needed to know if I could help you."
     The Doc's mental communications conveyed strange emotion - confusion, almost anger. "Every year you shoot yourself in the head on the anniversary of your wife's death? What are you hoping to accomplish? Are you just hoping that one year it'll magically work?"
     Jim's stricken look at the Doc said it all.
     The Doc reached out a tentacle and scooped the bullet off the table, withdrawing it into storage somewhere in its putty-like body. "I can't help you, James. It doesn't matter what reasoning you have for aiming a gun at yourself. You'll be found guilty of that killing. A bulletproof man, hundreds of years old, shoots himself knowing that the bullet can't affect him? And then that bullet hits someone else and they die?"
     Jim looked at the Doc, hands folded on the table.
   "Twenty-five years, James. It's the deal. Plead guilty. Don't let this go to trial. Don't let them try to find a way to execute you."
     Jim was about to speak, when the Doc went on swiftly. "I have two things for you."
     It produced a small bluish pill, placing it carefully on the table between them. The capsule glowed very faintly, just enough to be visible, and strange glittering specks moved within the fluid inside. Jim was reminded, strangely, of the fluid in the Doc's eye, except that this was blue instead of red. "We've had this developed for a long time. But we have almost never used it. We call it Hush, James. It's the antidote."
     Jim began to speak, confused. "The--?"
     "The antidote. Whatever made you what you are today - whatever it is that makes supers what they are - this counteracts it. For about forty-eight hours, at this dose. It's not a poison. Your body won't reject it. It'll just work, and you will be, suddenly... human.
     "Now, in your case, James, being over three hundred years old... your heart is well out of warranty. I suspect that as soon as you begin to digest the substance, your heart will suddenly realize this. There will be some pain, James, but it will be very brief."
     Jim instantly reached out to take the pill from the table. It swirled, mysteriously. Cecilia...
     "I have one other thing for you, James." the Doc communicated, placing the other object on the table, next to where the pill had been. It was a business card, with the clock logo and the word ENDGAME printed in bold across the top. Jim's eyes widened.
     "Fuck you, Doc." he said bitterly. "No matter how many criminals we help bring to justice... I can't bring my wife back. And since you went and pried... you know that, to me, nothing else matters." He raised his hand to his mouth, to drop the pill inside, and his arm stopped.
     He lowered his arm, rotated his wrist. Finding everything normal, he shook his head, lifted his hand to his mouth again and his arm stopped. His arm would take the command to only a limited extent, then it would hang in the air uselessly until he lowered it. He looked away from the pill and into the Doc's glaring red eye.
   "I'm sorry, James. But you'll hear me out first." The Doc's voice in Jim's mind was suddenly cold and heavy as a glacier.
     "Doc... I know you can probably erase my entire mind from ten miles away." Jim said levelly, pointing at the Doc with his thumb and forefinger, still holding the Hush pill. "But I am not frightened of you. If you don't release my arm, you are going to have to erase my mind as fast as you can. Something tells me that you can't do it as fast as I can take you apart."
     "You owe me, James Houston!" Something terrible happened to the Doc's words in Jim's mind. They echoed, and echoed, strangely like a crow's scream from the sky in a desolate field where he stood alone in his mind, just him and the voice. Jim recoiled bodily, slamming back into his chair. Jim, for the first time ever, realized something he supposed he should've known for a long time: The Doc was a great friend, and a powerful friend, but if the Doc was on one side and you were on the other...
     "What... what are you talking about?" Jim asked, his lips dry. He still held the Hush pill between his fingertips, but his hand had fallen limply to the table. His limbs were all weak, and would barely work. The Doc had really blasted him, but it had obviously cost the alien no effort whatsoever. "You got my attention, Doc."
     "The night your wife died, James. I had Eddie's body taken care of. I had the blood cleaned up, the evidence removed. And... I made that woman at the gas station forget." The menace was gone from the Doc's words now, but Jim's eyes opened wide and his still-sluggish limbs tensed up.
     "Doc... Doc..." Jim was a drowning man, trying to catch anything he could hold on to. Finding nothing. "I didn't even meet you until twenty years later!"
   "I could not permit you to go to prison, James Houston. I cannot explain to you how I knew what I knew, but yes. I protected you. Know that the testimony of the woman at the gas station would have been sufficient to lock you away for a long time. I needed you sooner than that." The Doc's one eye was suddenly terrifying. Calm, implacable, utterly alien, ... who knew what that eye could see? What did the Doc know?
     "But it had to happen this way, James. It could not have been otherwise. I could not have changed this. You must go to prison for this killing, accidental though it was. You must not go on public trial for your dual crime of being superhuman, and feeling simple human despair."
     "Right now, James, the superhumans ...are the good guys, by and large. The public loves the works of ENDGAME, Inc. Right now, that cannot change. Someday, it will. But now... I cannot permit it to change."
     Doc reached out and tapped the ENDGAME, Inc. business card on the table. Jim shook his head slowly, looking at the Doc, tears in his eyes. "Did I ever know you, Doc?"
     The Doc did not have a face to form expressions, but it somehow flawlessly conveyed sadness. "No, James. No, you did not." It rose from its squat position next to the table, and moved toward the door.
     "When I leave this room, my control over your limbs will cease. You will be free to take the gift I've given you at any time, and to die at last. But know this, James. It is not life that you hate. It is not truly despair that you feel.
     "It is rage. You are thinking... this alien does not know my mind. Why is this alien talking of rage? All I wish is to have my long-overdue death, and God willing... finally be with the only woman I have ever loved!"
     The alien turned back toward Jim, and Jim's field of vision seemed to narrow claustrophobically as he concentrated on the Doc's words. Jim couldn't help but think that in spite of being utterly alien, the Doc had captured his feelings very well.
     "It is Eldust that you hate. Make no mistake, James. You feel despair that Eldust killed your wife? You are right to feel this way. It killed her, as though it were the crazy gunman pulling the trigger. It has killed many. But you would not believe how many deaths that drug will cause in the years ahead."
     Jim realized with sudden crystal clarity that if the Doc were human, it would have been shaking with fury.
     "Eldust will ruin this world, James. I do not exaggerate. It will doom us all. But ENDGAME, Inc. is not on that side. We are not on the side of those who would destroy this planet. I say 'we,' James, because... I speak of you and I. I still need you at the company. The world still needs you. To stop this madness!"
     "Don't die because of Eldust. Your wife already did that. What I would ask you to do, James... is to take my other gift. Avenge your wife's death, with me. What is twenty-five years to you? In twenty-five years... give me back that pill, the day you come to my office for a job. The choice is yours."
   The Doc turned back to the door and left the room, the door closing quietly behind it. Jim stared a long time at the alien's gifts on the table. The faintly glowing blue pill on the left, the business card on the right.
     At least, Jim thought, I've got a few years to think it over.

State of the Nation

2011-01-04T01:21:00.005-06:00

:: what does a fella have to do to get a blog post around here

The State of the Nation, hosted by Hammer and Anvil.

ANVIL: Good morning, Hammer. My, it's been a long time, hasn't it?
HAMMER: Yes... yes, it has. It's been strange not having anything to discuss. But it's OK. Lots to talk about today. Right, Anvil?

A: Right! Now, our reader may observe, shrewdly, that some of these topics have already been covered in conversation by our mysterious author, the neckbeard known only as [REDACTED]. But, if our reader is inclined to complain about this, we'd like to offer a simple remedy.
H: Indeed, Anvil. Here's the layout. It starts with "shut the fuck up" and ends with an exclamation point.

A: Indeed, Hammer. Moreover, [REDACTED] is probably not capable of talking about these subjects with every human being on the planet Earth. At least, not in a timely fashion.
H: God, you're pompous.

A: That's why we're pals, Hammer; we make a great team. I'm the brains, and the looks, and you're the mouth.
H: What?

A: Never change, Hammer.
First off, I'd like to address a sort of creeping problem I've observed in my trawlings 'round the Internet. Have you ever read a discussion forum, Hammer? A message board? Anything where people get together and start trying to out-clever each other in text?
H: Sure. I prefer just vandalizing Wikipedia, but I know what you're talking about.

A: OK. Well, good. What I'd like, in order to demonstrate this increasingly worrisome problem, is for you to go to the message board of your choice and look for some kind of creative endeavor. Or even programming endeavor. Basically any discussion where people are talking about creating something together. You've got your authors, or your artists, or whatever. OK?
H: Sure. The clowns who are working together on making that huge robot that knits quilts the size of your mom's ass, they're all talking with each other, coordinating their efforts. Exchanging ideas.

A: That's right! Isn't it great! Wait... who's that guy who just popped in?
H: Ahhh, I see him too. JohnQJackass, 5 posts, joined forum two days ago. Of course this doesn't just apply to forums, but you see what I'm talking about.

A: He joins the thread, and what does JohnQJackass say with his precious, valued sixth post? He starts saying "I think when we finish the huge quilt robot we should build an even more giant robot that actually has guns, and then we could use it to kill the police in my town and my dad, god I hate my dad"
H: Indeed. JohnQJackass is full of great ideas for someone else. Or, in this case, really awkward ideas that kinda reveal JohnQJackass's deep personal issues, but that's neither here nor there.

A: What would they do without his input! Note that he says "we" repeatedly, for a project he'd love to steer but has no desire (or ability) to contribute to. Isn't that an interesting term? What exactly does "we" mean, here?
H: Hmmm. Interesting question indeed, Anvil. It's a tough colloquialism to define. I'd say it is translated roughly as "Hopefully someone, in a perfect world you, but in any case definitely not me."

A: Yes, that's rather apt, Hammer. Your mom was clearly under some kind of mistaken impression about you when she was complaining to me last night.
H: What?

A: The point is, you see this guy, JohnQJackass, absolutely anytime any group of people are trying to collaborate on a project of any import at all. If you think about it, JohnQJackass is being a real selfish jerk. He attempts to co-opt the camaraderie of the group, by saying "we," saying we should implement this exactly the way I suggest, because we have such a great project, and I am a part of it. Of us. Aren't we glad to have me aboard?
H: No, JohnQJackass. We kinda hate your guts. It's my hope that anyone who sees this weblog post (Hi, reader! Lonely out there?) will be inoculated against this subtle form of collaboration-straining. Now that you've seen it elucidated, it will annoy you. As it should, for the reasons above mentioned. JohnQJackass is a prick. And he's everywhere.
He's gonna use his seventh post to complain that he followed all the directions for building the giant quilt robot and it didn't work because his mom didn't want to buy seventeen tons of reinforced aircraft aluminum. He's also gonna request that someone redesign it to be built out of used Mountain Dew cans, because we have so many of them handy.

A: So. Lovely, precious, long-waiting, almost certainly not quite sober reader. When you meet JohnQJackass or his millions of equally socially inept, childish, and selfish buddies, trying to co-opt projects you like for their own purposes, your duty is first to notice it, then to mock him relentlessly until he disappears.
H: I like "Who's this we? You got a turd in your pocket?" as an opening riposte, but you can call me old-fashioned.

A: Actually, Hammer, I like that.
H: Really?

A: No, of course not. You're such a goddamn oaf I honestly can't believe it.
H: Shithead. :D

A: Here's one that's a little easier to explain. Have you noticed how amazing the pizza place down the street is? Isn't it amazing to go to McDonald's or buy a pair of pants? It's just goddamn amaaaaazing to walk half a block when it's a nice day.
H: Do you know what amazing means? If you actually do, you know it's positively amazing that all these people are saying it all the fucking time.

A: All the fucking time? Surely you don't mean ALL THE FUCKING TIME?
H: Oh my yes, Anvil, I do in fact mean people say "amazing" when they don't really mean it ALL. THE GODDAMN. MOTHERFUCKING. TIME.

A: Here's an idea, world: Quit it.
H: It's a good idea, we should get right the fuck on it.

A: Heh. Nice one, Hammer.
H: I know! Wasn't it awesome?

A: Sure was, man!
H: Yup, just ... awesome.

A: ...Wait... "awesome" has... an actual meaning, too... but... I like "awesome." Dammit. Dammit! You kinda ruined my day a little bit, Hammer. Why'd you have to go and SAY that?
H: 'Cause you've been a shithead this whole conversation, Anvil.

A: Ahhh... Well played, well played. You win this round, Hammer. Sorry I was being such a prick.
H: Eh, it's cool. We're cool, Anvil. I got your mom my dick for Christmas.

A: What?

3DS Max is hard to use.

2010-02-01T23:44:00.009-06:00

This is my new windows desktop. I like it.
Click it for 1680x1050. It's huge.

This took 220 hours to render, or so. I'd click it and view it at youtube.com if I were you; part of the reason it took so long is that it's pretty high-res. Youtube's automatic compression, while pretty good, did things to the edges of the helices that I don't really like. Kind of clobbers the extremely slow-rendering focal blur near the camera, which looks beautiful. I'm still happy with it. Oh, and go all the way: change it from 360p to 480p. Then just kind of stare and let it play.

Thanks K-dot, for reminding me how to embed YouTube videos. Every time I go to do it, I have to figure it out again, and I think you just saved me 15 minutes.

This video is absurdly high-res. It is just completely pointless to have it at 720p. It took about 35 hours to render. It is much less visually interesting than Cloudbusting, which is not something I anticipated.

As a visual experiment, this video is largely a failure - the stills made it look very attractive, but it's just not an interesting animation. As practice with learning basic functions of Adobe Premiere, it was a success; I think the audio - while simple - is a good match, and a success as well.

More rambling commentary can be had by clicking on these discolored words and clicking "More info" on the right.

Thinkers, Tinkers

2010-01-28T21:15:00.006-06:00

::what the hell happened here?

HAMMER: I was daydreaming today.
ANVIL: That's when all the trouble starts. Remember last time, Hammer? Hell, I'm still shocked the CIA bailed us out of jail. I guess they only wanted us for those goddamn unethical tests, though.

H: Yeah. Sometimes, the transmitter that they installed in my head... I can see its light blinking behind my left eyeball, if I look in the mirror in the dark.

A: All the same, Hammer, you brought it on yourself. It's really best for you to avoid having ideas at all costs.

H: I agree. If I ever get any ideas, from now on I'm going to give them back.

A: Good man. Remember: If a light bulb goes on over your head, sell it immediately. Buy yourself a candy bar or something.

What were you daydreaming about, exactly?

H: I was imagining a twisted plot of mine many years in the making coming to fruition, Anvil. You see, certain trusted parties have been sent letters accompanied by instructions to only open these letters when a specific codeword comes by anonymous post. When I begin the chain, at a moment of my sole choosing, it will all start when I send the first letter to the first recipient, containing the first codeword. The recipient will open his letter, and the letter will contain instructions: Send a single card, on which is written a specific word, to the address given.

Anvil leans forward with some interest.

H: You see how it shall go, Anvil. Each recipient shall, in turn, receive instructions to 'trigger' the next recipient in the chain. And on and on. In the end, the final envelope shall be opened, by my extremely large, but extremely dimwitted second cousin. It will contain $100 and a set of instructions to accomplish in exchange for this payment. He lives in this town, as a matter of fact, and I will never disclose his identity to you. Just know, that if a six-foot-four oaf wearing a bad toupee walks up to you out of nowhere and kicks you in the shin, that there is a reason, Anvil.

A: Does he already have the letter?

H: Perhaps he does, Anvil. Perhaps he does not; I fail to see how it is relevant.

A: It's quite relevant, Hammer. You see, I will just carry around $200 at all times. I shall put a special compartment in my shoe for this purpose. This $200 will be used to outbid the offer you have made to your dimwitted second cousin. Surely he would rather take $300 to walk away than kick me and lose the $200 I offer. He is surely not that dimwitted.

H: Well, in that case, I shall simply place $300 in my letter and pre-emptively outbid you. Your flaw, Anvil... if I may speak a bit critically of you, dear Anvil... your flaw is your overconfidence. You thoughtlessly told me how you would outmaneuver me, which enables me to out-outmaneuver you.

A: By all means, Hammer, send off the letter. Enclose $300. But know that I will simply choose to carry around $400.

H: I believe the solution to this inevitable infinite regress is simply to send a completely undisclosed amount to Cletus. You will have a hard time outbidding a number you are not privy to.

A: You will have a hard time making a bid at all, Hammer, if I've stolen your wallet.

Anvil hands over Hammer's wallet. Hammer gapes slightly and puts it in his pocket.

ENDGAME, Inc.: Untitled

2009-08-19T12:40:00.012-05:00

The buzzer rang, but when they opened the front door, nobody was there. The sensors had caught nothing, either. It was as if the package had just appeared.

The package sat on the concrete steps leading up to the entrance doorway. Cubical, a little over a foot on each side and wrapped neatly in brown paper, the package had a handwritten white paper card stuck on, one corner under the packing tape. "Work-related," it said, in a fairly elegant cursive. The card flapped in the breeze, tapping sporadically against the side of the box.

ENDGAME had operatives on hand that could smell explosive residues at less than one part per billion. They also had fairly sophisticated computerized hand-held bomb-detecting equipment that would keep even a baseline grunt safe from the most cleverly hidden explosive.

They also had Murph, who happened to be in the lobby, smoking a cigarette under the smoke eater. He knelt down, touched the box for about a quarter of a second, declared (correctly) that it wasn't a bomb, and brought it to the Doc.

"Special delivery, Doc!" he declared, strolling in to the office with no further announcement, and setting the box on the desk. "It's not a bomb, and the card on the side says 'Work-related.' Feels heavy," he added.

"Work-related. We can always use some work," the Doc responded telepathically. Its 'tone' (as much as one can apply the term to a telepathic transmission written straight into someone's neurons) conveyed skepticism.

"Exactly. Shall I open it?" Murph's voice did not in any way conceal his curiosity. "The packaging isn't radiating any danger, but I'd really like to read whatever's inside. It's funny, I don't really have a good feeling about it, even though I know we're not actually at risk." Murph trailed off somewhat, bemused, looking down at the box.

"Hmm. I can see why you are so eager. I, too, love a mystery. Proceed, Murph. And...do it cautiously, if you would?" The Doc communicated this with slight amusement. If Murph didn't detect any danger from the box the package was wrapped in, there was no danger. However, if the objects inside were at all delicate, Murph endangered them with his famous, rather cavalier approach to unwrapping presents.

The Doc's one, fairly terrifying red eye - an almost featureless sac of red gel perched atop a foot-tall grey pseudopod just forward of the Doc's center mass - stared at Murph with interest, and at the mysterious 'gift' he held. In spite of the Doc's appearance, it was in fact often a nice...thing... once you got to know it.

However, it bears mentioning that at the time of this story, not a single being on Earth had ever actually gotten to know the Doc, although some thought that they had, and what they would learn in the process of really getting to know it would almost certainly make them decide to try to kill it. Nonetheless, the Doc regarded a few humans and mutants on Earth as its friends, and one of that small number stood in front of the alien now, trying not to tear open a mysterious box with his bare hands.

Murph restrained himself, however, simply using a rusty multi-tool knife in his pocket to open the tape and pull open the top flaps of the box. After the flaps underneath were open as well, and a wad of the same brown paper packed atop the contents was removed, inside the box was nothing but a large-bore energy pistol, obviously well-used, with the word ENDGAME engraved on the barrel. Murph's eyes opened wide with alarm.

The Doc moved slightly on pseudopodia, pressed a button under the desk, and the door closed behind Murphy. "OK, Murph." the alien thought at its friend. "Sit down, and tell me everything."

The office only had one chair, and it was not on the Doc's side of the desk. If the Doc wanted to sit, it just sat. Where it was. Its body was just that way. Hector Murphy pulled the tan office chair out of the corner and sat in front of the desk, while the Doc watched him with more interest than even Murphy realized. Murph took the gun out of the box carefully, with his fingertips, and exclaimed. "Wow, Doc - I'm not even starting to go and read this, it's just flooding--" he broke off, sitting back, looking down at the firearm, dumbfounded. "They're breaking in..." he began.

It was a sunny day. Clouds patiently rolled by overhead, and the air was still and warm behind the Hammer Industries compound. The scent of trees was close and pleasant.

In the clearing behind the building, six guards had suddenly found themselves punctured and dead. Only one of the guards had seen anything.

This guard had happened to notice a shadowy man, outline slightly indistinct, sneaking through some brush near the trees. The shadowy man was cautiously looking around for surveillance or guards, but did not notice that he was being watched. Occasional attempted break-ins happened all the time, so the guard did not hurry as he leaned casually against the building, out of immediate view, and pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt. He pressed the "Talk" button.

Even though he had attempted to transmit, a high-pitched squeal came from the speaker, its volume causing the speaker to crackle. He yanked the walkie away from his head like it had burned him, and he suddenly, too, found himself dead, bleeding out from his neck as he fell.

The other shadowy man, the one he hadn't seen, had used his mind to disable the radio before using a small but fearsomely sharp blade to disable the guard. The mutant operative, codename Scramble, had been able to get that close to the guard because the guards were not trained a hundredth as well as the men who had come to kill them.

The other man in the black sneaking suit, codenamed Syme, looked around carefully for any further trouble, and saw none. When Scramble raised his hand silently and beckoned, Syme dashed toward the building, careful to stay out of the vision of a camera placed over the door they intended to open. As Syme flattened himself against the wall, Scramble looked up at the camera.

Instantly, its servo malfunctioned. Swinging hard to one direction instead of sweeping back and forth, it began clicking rhythmically as its motion controller processed a stream of invalid instructions.

Syme withdrew a lockpick from his pocket and jiggled it in the lock, putting his ear close. If it had been an electronic lock, Scramble could have disabled it by effectively short-circuiting the hardware logic that verified the passcode. Keying any set of digits would then have opened the door. Scramble had no influence on locks of a physical nature, but that's why Endgame partnered him with Syme.

Syme had claimed he could open a bank vault with a credit card and a hairpin. While this was an exaggeration, he nevertheless had the door open in seconds.

The two men in black slipped inside and the door closed behind them, Syme reaching backward to quiet its sound expertly. The camera continued to point off into the trees, and its motor continued to click stubbornly.

Someone in the control room might miss a glitching camera for a while, but they would certainly not miss the two corpses covered in blood that the camera would swing directly past once its proper operation resumed. Scramble had filled its buffer with the maximum length of invalid commands, but that would only give them about twenty minutes.

Scramble and Syme found themselves in an empty, blue-lit corridor when their eyes adjusted. The lighting buzzed overhead. "So," Scramble transmitted suddenly (and soundlessly) through his suit radio.

Syme jumped and restrained the urge to smack his teammate in the head. "Jesus! I don't need a heart attack, Irving! You realize we're in fucking mortal danger here? You could tap my shoulder or something. Fuck. I almost shot you!" The pounding of his heart slowly subsided.

Scramble frowned. He went to push his glasses up on his nose, but of course, he'd forgotten that Endgame had paid for the surgery. Old habits die hard. "Don't call me Irving. It's Scramble. That's my goddamn codename. How do you like it? Gabriel."

~ more coming!!

ENDGAME, INC.: Out of Play

2009-08-04T21:45:00.011-05:00

::dig deeper

Murph took a sip from his stained coffee mug and set it down on his desk, grimacing. After thinking for a moment, he burst into speech. "He can shoot fire from his hands."

"I beg your pardon, Hector?"

"The new guy. The Doc just hired him. He can shoot fire from his hands. That's his power. And call me Murph. Everyone else does."

Hector Murphy, a normally jovial man in his early 30s, was somewhat less than jovial at the moment. Leaning toward the man with the camera sitting next to him in his poorly-lit office, he sighed and resumed speaking.

"Strictly, I'm told, it isn't fire. It's a sort of barely-visible ectoplasm that emanates from his hands. The ectoplasm, however, is highly flammable, which of course he discovered on accident while trying to light a cigarette, drunk." Murph pulled a partly crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds from his shirt pocket, winced and dropped them back in. Overhead, the ceiling fan began to creak a little annoyingly, but the crew would be able to remove that back at the station. The reporter sat silently and let Hector Murphy collect himself, recorder still rolling.

"Fortunately," Murph continued, "the asshole is completely immune to fire as well. He discovered that, I'm told, at almost exactly the same time." He couldn't quite suppress a grin, but he did his best.

"Yeah. So he was just fine afterward, even though the burning ectoplasmic emission was covering his face and burning at probably a few hundred degrees. The 'plasm evaporates on its own if he's not consciously maintaining it, though, so everything was fine. However, he made the mistake of drunkenly covering himself in flames, then being completely unharmed, in a public park. At about 4 PM."

This time, Murph took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, fished one out, and lit it. After smoking for a moment, he continued.

"Well, of course Endgame, Inc. called him up. We've been looking to expand. And what do you know - rather than get slammed for indecent exposure, he let the Doc and I pull some strings with the D.A. in exchange for signing on with us... at what you might call a bargain-basement price."

"Hang on, Murph, hang on." The reporter spoke up. "Indecent exposure?"

Murph raised his eyebrows, took a final drag, and put his cigarette out in the well-used ashtray before turning back to the camera, letting the pause wear on. "Well, the guy's clothes weren't fireproof, obviously."

"...Ah."

"Yeah. So Endgame's been training him. Fitted him with some custom-designed electrical actuators. Actually... the way they did it was rather funny." Murphy chuckled, and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling fan, remembering. "They just gave him the actuators. Put them in the palms of his hands. They said 'Here, buddy. These will help you ignite your ectoplasm.' and left him locked in a room for a while while he figured it out."

"Wow. Kind of a brutal hazing ritual, isn't it?"

"Well, there's nothing like it to teach a fellow how to use his power. Trap him in a room and just let him fuck around with it, out of the public's sight, unable to harm anyone or himself. If they get furious and start throwing a fit in there? Most do, so much the better. They can use that to focus their ability. It never takes long; it's largely instinctive."

Murphy stopped leaning back, put his hands on the arms of his chair, and looked at the camera earnestly. "I know it sounds a little fucked up, but Endgame doesn't do it this way to be assholes. We do it this way because it gets results." He lit another cigarette. "And we don't start the process, of course, until they've signed. Signed away any right to complain about it, that is." He chuckled sourly. "It's in the fine print."

"For a mutant like me, it's not so bad, but for ol' Kurt, it was quite painful. You see, he could figure out how to emanate the ectoplasm... and he figured out how to activate the actuators... but he couldn't figure out how to apply force to the flames." Murph made an effort not to chuckle, but one came out anyway, gritty and full of lung-noise. He coughed a couple times, hard, doubling over.

"Alliteration, wonderful; always nice to have a comedian in the interview." the reporter commented with dry amusement. "So... he torched himself with his own ectoplasm trying to figure out how to throw it."

Murph recovered, a smile touching his lips as he straightened up in his chair. "Oh, only a couple hundred times he torched himself, before he managed to launch a fireball at the wall a couple times and they let him out."

"OK. Look, Murph, you seem like a really solid guy. I'm sitting here interviewing you and I've gotta say, this relatively unbiased reporter can tell you're a good sort. And I've read your crew's past record. The city's lucky to have people like you on the other end of the big red phone. But this question has to be asked: Why do you hate this guy so much?"

Murphy winced awkwardly, his amusement visibly fading. He reached over, took another sip of his coffee, and began to answer, looking a bit shamefaced. "Look, Farsight..." he began. He set his coffee cup down again. "It's not that I hate him, exactly. Let me say that I hate what he represents as far as the future of this company."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Well... do you know why they keep me on the payroll, here?"

"Can't say I came across that information during my research, Murph. Where are you going with this?"

"Humor me. Just gimme that camera, will you?"

Reporter Farsight handed over the vidcorder, a look of confusion on his face, and also a wordless message to Murphy that the recorder didn't catch, in his eyes. This better be good, we're live. Murph caught it just fine, though, and he nodded back. It would be.

Murph ran his hands over the vidcorder's shape, holding it between his knees, pointing the camera toward the floor. He seemed to be just observing its form, noticing the few dents on the metal matte gray housing. He closed his eyes.

"I can tell you a lot of things about this vidcorder," Murph began. "I can tell you its model. This is a Dakrom 540. It's been customized with an aftermarket wide-angle lens. It was built six years ago, at the factory down in New Farnston."

Farsight leaned forward with some interest, off camera but still on record. The red light still blinked in the telltales at the back. "OK, Murph, that's true, but all that stuff is pretty easy to know if you know your cameras. This isn't exactly top-secret equipment."

"I'm not done, Reporter, be patient." Murphy interrupted, his eyes still closed, learning more. After a few moments of silence, he resumed speaking. "You are the third person this camera has been assigned to. You have had it the longest. The first thing you ever recorded with this camera was a parade. You routinely let this camera sit perilously close to the little coffee maker on your desk. It's a bad idea, Reporter. I'd move that coffee maker as soon as you get back to the news station. If you manage to spill coffee on this and you wreck it, the producer - ahhh, the producer. Jessie. Jessie will have your ass. You'll be stuck covering high school basketball games for months." He grinned, irrepressibly. Murphy liked this part of his job, obviously.

The reporter for THENEWS.9 found himself with nothing to say. The man holding his vidcorder continued, his tone slightly sharper. "Don't date Jessie, by the way. She's trouble, and I am not just saying that because she's your boss."

The reporter made a quiet noise of alarm. This was not going in any good direction; he reached out and gently took the vidcorder back. Hector Murphy opened his eyes and came out of his trance, a knowing look of satisfaction on his face as he let the recorder go. "Don't date her," he mouthed seriously before the vidcorder was back in position.

"Hector Murphy, or 'Murph' as he prefers to be called, has just demonstrated the ability that keeps him hired at the mercenary firm Endgame, Inc. - This reporter assures the audience that everything he ... detected... while holding the vidcorder was completely accurate." His voice lost a bit of formality as he went on hastily. "Uhhh, excepting, of course, Hector Murphy's statement that this reporter's producer, Jessie, is 'trouble.'" Live TV... Farsight thought to himself. He sighed inwardly.

"So, Murph... you can touch objects and know about them?"

"Know them, Reporter. I touch objects and know them."

"That's fairly incredible, Murph. If you're any indication, you guys are certainly worth the money."

Again, Murph grinned. "It is, and we are, and I know you want to know why I hate Kurt -- oh, excuse me, I guess I should use his handle -- operative named 'Mister Burns' -- so much. It's simple."

His grin faded. "Our newest guy can throw fire from his hands. We can also field an operative that can just dissolve solid objects by touching them. Tanks are not a problem for Sizzle. Capture is not a problem for Sizzle. And, yes, her reaction time is so good that indeed bullets are not a problem for Sizzle.

We have available multiple six-operative teams of crack-shot normals with ordnance ranging from critical-range extreme-lethality Disaster Cannons, to fully automatic laser rifles with an effective range of over six miles. We usually field along with these teams one mutant who serves as the 'communicator' - he or she binds them together psychically, allowing for seamless, effective action across the entire arena of engagement, taking place under cover of total audio and radio silence. Lately this operative usually also carries the bazooka, for when tact fails."

He took a deep breath. "Sometimes they come back, and they bring me a piece of something metal. Sometimes it's still hot. And they say, 'Here, Murph. Tell us who this belonged to... we need to inform next of kin.' That's some very vital shit you're having me do, guys, I appreciate it. Maybe someday you'll let me go out to the field and tell you who has been watering the plants."

He coughed noisily, into his fist. Rattling. Farsight sat, a little stunned yet by the revelations his vidcorder had offered to his mutant interviewee. He recognized good TV, though, and this was good TV. The recorder rolled as Murph resumed speaking, looking into the lens once again.

"The direction of Endgame, Inc. appears to have changed. We're still doing our very best for our clients' dollars, as is our policy, and we do minimize collateral damage. I'm not saying we're getting sloppy. I'm saying... it seems that I, personally, have a critical shortage of exploding blood or psychic missile diversion abilities. This shortage has kept me out of play."

"As one of the founding members of Endgame, Inc., I am, I feel, understandably bitter."

Murph leaned over, took a drink of his coffee, grimaced, and set the mug down where it was, on the corner of the cluttered desk. "We done here, Farsight?"

They were done.

Odds and Ends

2009-07-29T12:34:00.009-05:00

On Splenda

First off, I'd like to talk about Splenda. Splenda is the name of a brand of sucralose, an artificial sweetener. I put some in my coffee today from a little paper package, and I noticed that the paper package says a funny thing. It says:

"Splenda: Tastes Like Sugar, Because It's Made From Sugar."

No offense to McNeil Nutritionals, but it's possible to oversimplify things. I mean, you can make a lot of things from sugar. Some of them explode. Some of them will kill you. Some of them, such as sucralose, can't be effectively digested in the human body. And you wouldn't say "Tastes Like Sugar, Because It's Made From Sugar" about, say, starch, would you?

I propose a slightly less pithy, but more informative slogan.

"Splenda: Tastes Like Sugar, Because Even Though It's Been Chemically Jacked-Up So That It Passes Through The Human Digestive System Without Breaking Down Or Contributing Nutrition In Any Way, Nonetheless It Retains Enough Of The Molecular Structure And Form Of Sugar To Trigger The Sweetness Receptors On The Surface Of The Human Tongue; How About That Shit?"

Alternately, there's my old fallback joke about Splenda's slogan:

"Oh, it tastes like sugar because it's made from sugar, does it? In that case, I'm happy to inform consumers that my poop tastes like pizza."

In other news

[ed. note: I recognized after I wrote this how many of my friends it sounds like I'm insulting directly. I am not really talking about people who just use a Mac - although really, why does EVERYONE call it a Macbook instead of a Mac laptop or just a laptop? Always wondered that. But anyway: Even if this essay is not talking about you, you definitely know the kind of person I'm talking about. My thesis is not that those people are stupid; my thesis is that they're being preyed upon by Apple.]

I wrote this in the middle of June, I found it in my "Unpublished Drafts" while going through the trash of this weblog. Trying to motivate myself to say something, but I was somewhat surprised to find this. I only barely remember writing it.

I bought a heap of lovely curtains
And I hung them around the room.
I closed the door
And kept peeping in
But a party never appeared.

It's related (if you can believe it) to my long-standing dislike of Apple Inc.

My problem with Apple is that they sell you an image. They sell you a fast-talking kind of slick image that has really fallen out of favor in advertising in favor of more straightforward promises of utility. Apple, Inc. is old-school when it comes to their branding. Their branding's implied message is that you will be cool if you purchase their products.

Not that their products work better. Or are superior. Or are fairly priced. They are selling you the idea that you will be cool if you purchase their products. And they charge a fairly high price for this, and people feel that they are being done a favor by Apple.

Apple fanboys. Look around on the internet and you will see Apple fanboys. Always taking the most token and awkward of opportunity to drop facts about how great their Apple laptop is, taken right from the product's brochure. And if you think I'm exaggerating, you simply haven't seen enough Apple fanboys casually mention their "crystal-clear 17-inch display" - as if any manufacturer makes anything but crystal-clear 17-inch displays here in the goddamn 21st century.

These people feel that they must rep the product at any opportunity. They love to do it, and Apple loves them for it. You can't buy endorsements like that! (God help you if you still know someone who does this in real life; thankfully they seem to be growing somewhat rarer as people slowly, reluctantly embrace the idea that an iPod [or as Apple encourages you to call it, 'iPod' - alone - a proper noun, like it is your new friend] is just an overpriced MP3 player.) And do you know anyone who calls their Apple laptop by its brand name, a "Macbook" or "Powerbook?" Jobs forbid they call it a laptop.

Apple customers semi-rationally feel they owe this constant bragging-on-Apple-products to Apple because they bought a product, and that was all it took for them to be cool. However - and this is the truly sad part - they know inside that it is not true. That is why they must constantly mention how great the product is. If they quote the brochure, and someone believes them, their identity, tied up in their self-labeling as an "Apple Product Owner," is strengthened.

Just keep peeping in. Those fancy curtains will summon a party to your living room any minute now and you will be the guest of honor, at last, and won't that be great?

I think a lot of people who buy Apple products just need a hug. I have a deep-seated conviction that this is true, although of course I can't prove it. They just need to be hugged, smiled at, and told that they are pretty darn swell just the way they are. Like when you were a kid, and your parents told you that you didn't need the new expensive brand-name clothes to be accepted; it's YOU people like, you know, not the things you wear!

Sometimes, silly things occur to me. Things occur to me like... you know, I want to make an ad campaign, and have a bunch of public service announcements encouraging people not to try to buy friends.

I'd encourage viewers of my message to try to appreciate people for who they are and the uniqueness they bring to the table, not for the things they own, and to just trust people that they will do the same for you... if you're truly earnest, it's not a bad bet.

I'd try to counteract all the negativity we're brainwashed with from every direction these days by kind of floating the idea across that really, truly, things aren't that bad as long as we have each other. Yeah. Just you, me, and the rest of us friends. Sticking together!

I'd urge you to consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone feels that way about you; that in some small way... you make things kind of OK, just with your presence and the things you say and do.

It also occurs to me that this would be a hell of a way to sell a wristwatch.

A Dialogue

2009-05-15T08:41:00.003-05:00

Hammer: I've missed you, Anvil.
Anvil: I've missed you too, Hammer. I've missed our little chats.

H: Did you know that "chats" is "cats" in French?
A: Yeah, but it's pronounced "Shaw."

H: Damn you, French.

A Dialogue

2009-03-15T10:53:00.005-05:00

Hammer: I've noticed something, Anvil.
Anvil: Enlighten me, Hammer.

H: If you look around, you'll see literature about spirituality, the spiritual nature of our existence, and the soul, everywhere. Seems like everyone's written a book on these topics.
A: Agreed, brother.

H: But I was thinking. I've done a lot of reading, Anvil. And the more you read, the more you notice that, while everyone has different ways of painting the same ideas, regardless after a while you are no longer even really surprised when once again, you find this person talking about the exact same concept (under a different name) that you've been exposed to from so many other sources.
A: Lots of people have noticed that, but it's good that you're trying to systematize, Hammer. Pattern recognition is what separates us from the gardening implements and the silverware.

H: Well, fine. But I realized something today, and I'm gonna lay this on ya, get ready.
A: I'm steady. I'm holding on to something solid, Hammer.

Your mom's ass.

H: Fuck you, Anvil, Jesus, I'm trying to be serious here.
A: Fine fine, sorry. Lay it on me.

H: Anyone who in good faith searches for spiritual truth will find it.
A: Well you might be on to something there, Hammer.

H: I'm not even sure what it means. But it's obviously true. But... it raises a question for me. If someone searches in good faith for God specifically, will they find God?
A: Only if God is there.

H: ......
A: I'm gonna be honest, Hammer. I hate that Zen riddle face you make. It looks like your brain is passing a kidney stone.

"Good evening, my friends.

2009-03-02T14:01:00.004-06:00

I'm glad you could make it here in a Timely fashion. Come in, and sit down. I assure you all will be made clear in a few moments; you were not invited here for Nothing."

A small knot of well-dressed wealthy, silently led by Duchess Wickersham, filed into the snug, yet subtly opulent dining-room, after allowing their overcoats to be taken by the help.

The overcoats were whisked away with scarcely a sound; meanwhile, the men and women all sat down at the long white table. The fire crackled, its warmth gleaming off the gold of every fixture. Before each of the seven places - six for the guests, and one for Duke Arlington at the head of the table - there was a small china saucer, on which rested a teacup. Arlington had put himself in the position of honor at his own gathering, which was thought to be bad form by those present, but the Duke was never conventional; nor was he humble. Nor, for that matter, did they find him in the room.

The guests waited paitiently. The Marquis, Hargrave, glanced at his wife Amelia, who remained still with her hands folded in her lap. There were few reasons to break decorum, she thought, and this had not yet proved to be such an occasion. Arlington wanted them to wait? They would wait.

the tin man

2009-02-17T05:13:00.004-06:00

there is no craft, or artistry, in you
you're a robot, wandering, tinkering
wishing and trying to build a thing
that makes others feel.

and all the mechanisms
half-constructed that you cast aside
only serve to hammer home
that a heart is something you can't build.

[REDACTED]'s back, back again.

2009-02-15T22:41:00.003-06:00

[REDACTED]'s back, tell your mom.

I think I'm going to wallpaper my house with these.

2009-01-30T22:30:00.006-06:00

http://steelseries.com/products/surfaces/steelseries-5l

2011 EDIT: I actually edited this old blog entry to make sure that the link at the top here points to the product, since the Alienware site no longer mentions it. I believe The Offspring said it best when they asked me "Na, na, why don't you get a job?"

HAMMER: Only $39? But how can they build it so cheaply, you may ask? I mean, for fuck's sake. It has five layers. Your average mousepad? Many, many fewer layers. Rumor has it, Anvil, that your mousepad only has like, a third of a layer.

ANVIL: That's the Alienware difference. Five layers. A crack team of Alienware mathematicians has determined that this is a full tenfold improvement, layers-wise, with relation to your old and busted mousepad.

H: That's right, Anvil. Let's talk about the layers a bit.

First, there's plastic.

And it only gets more luxurious from there.

Underneath the plastic layer, there is a layer of cloth. Yes, unbelievers. We dare to say it. Cloth.

A: But don't worry. You won't damage this rare and wonderful cloth by touching it.

H: No. There is a layer of plastic over the cloth.

Next, a layer of soft polyisoprene is injected by elementals--

A: --expensive ones--

H: --from the mysterious Plane of Ice. This is not your garden-variety isoprene. It's far polier. This will impress your friends and infuriate your enemies.

A: As will telling them you spent over forty bucks on this thing. Forty dollars! That's quality, folks. Shit, around here the best thing forty bucks will buy you is a lecherous wink from that sixty-something hooker with the wooden leg that hangs around the handicapped stall in the men's room at the liquor store.

H: Not that you'd know, right?

A: Just go to the counter and ask for "Hörtense."

H: Or just follow the syncopated clacking of her pegleg on the bathroom tile. Not that I'd know.

After the soft polyisoprene is carefully inserted, the SteelSeries 5L Mousepad is turned over by a crew of very highly-trained specialist cats. On the bottom of the soft polyisoprene layer, more luxury is added in the form of the finest plastic.

A: I must hasten to point out that this plastic is thicker than the other plastic and so doesn't count as a re-do of the first plastic layer. If the two layers of plastic were of identical thickness, you could plausibly accuse Alienware of artificially inflating its mousepad layer count.

But they're not, and you definitely can't.

H: As if all this plastic and foam and cloth weren't enough precision mousing surface for you, Alienware has tipped it off with the cream of the crop. The layer crop, if you will.

Really, they're practically throwing in this layer for free, Anvil, once you factor in manufacturing overhead, economies of scale...

A: Static variables, oligarchies, the relevant externalities involved...

H: Yes, all the things that make a $39 mousepad worth every penny. This last layer is so very much a layer, that my very soul quivers with appreciation.

A: Of its layeriness.

H: Exactly, Anvil. This last layer - which is very, very much a layer indeed - is known as "rubber elements." That is, and I'm quoting from the website here, "Small soft rubber elements ensures complete non-slippery steadiness." The very quality of the editing of that sentence proves, by proxy, the quality of this, the fifth layer.

A: The fifth layer, while it is called "Rubber Elements," is absolutely not little rubber feet on the bottom of the mousepad to keep it from sliding. Right, Hammer?

H: Right, Anvil. Because it's hard to really call that a layer. Thus, that would be artificially inflating, as we've mentioned, the layer count. A true five-layer mousepad such as this one needs no artificial layer-count inflation. Therefore, let's just change the subject quickly.

A: Hey, doesn't foam rubber - uh, I mean soft polyisoprene - already have a pretty high-friction surface as it is? You'd think it'd keep the mousepad from sliding all on its own, without that famous fifth layer of "rubber elements."

H: Well, it would definitely keep the mousepad from sliding all around the desk, but there happens to be - if you'll recall, Anvil - a thick layer of decadent plastic in the way. A very necessary, opulent layer of lush plastic. I know you're not suggesting that this is some meager, dime-store three-layer mousepad. Anvil. I know you wouldn't dream of it.

A: Of course I wouldn't, Hammer. This mousepad is thirty-nine dollars.

H: Plus tax and shipping and handling charges, of course.

A: Relevant externalities.

Earth is a Tricky Place

2009-01-09T23:47:00.002-06:00

I hate pretending to be human. I am pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I take pride in my work. But I hate it.

When I listen to humans speaking, I like looking at the spot right between their eyes. You'd be surprised how many people are completely inattentive to their unibrow. It's hard to concentrate on their words, sometimes, when you're admiring the hedge, but it's a skill one can master, and I have mastered the fuck out of it. Geez. Would it kill you to buy some Nair? Or something? I've got some scissors you can borrow, dude, just trim that shit up. That's right. I'm no longer speaking hypothetically, I'm talking to you. Fix your fucking UNIBROW so I can pretend to be making eye contact with you.

...Oh, I'm just kidding, dude. As the human body I've borrowed has this same minor defect, I could be termed a hypocrite. I'm sure other assholes are staring at my unibrow and ignoring what I'm saying. Hell, you could be doing it right now, for all I know. But, seeing how I'm something other than human, I don't feel that I have any reason to give a shit what you're doing.

"Giving a shit." Isn't that a charming idiom? Just charming. I care so much, I'm going to fucking poop. I'm going to defecate on the subject of this conversation. Hey, man, I care, let me just let go of some fecal matter about it. Nah, I don't care enough. Let me tighten up my rectum so no shit falls out. Basically I don't care enough to crap myself right now, sorry, man. Hey, look, I'm channeling George Carlin. See how good at pretending to be human I am? Shit jokes and wordplay. Hey -- wait a second. Just a second.

OK, sorry. That wasn't the guy. I know it looks like I'm a postal worker, but really, it's just a cover story. Yeah, I know. A cover story, like a fucking dollar-store spy novel and shit. But seriously. Not human. On Earth, inhabiting a human body, in order to assassinate a specific individual. Fucked up, eh?

Get this, though. The 'people' who sent me here - and I use the term 'people' so loosely I'm about to lose my grasp on it altogether - they view this the same way you might ask someone to make you a dozen photocopies because they're closer to the machine. There's no glory in this. This guy is just important, and that's why I need to--

But that'd be telling, wouldn't it. I know one thing about you humans - you like to talk! And yes, since it's come up, I suppose it's a trait I've acquired as well. What can I say? Some things come with the body. But, no. Can't have you talking. Best if you don't know just what it is I need to do with this human's organs once he's dead. Just know I need to do it. Or I'll be punished.

There's worse shit than death. There's shit that's so bad you can't even begin to fear it could happen to you until after you've died. You don't have the context necessary to formulate the concern until your body's separated from your mind.

And now I'm definitely saying too much. Doing a piss-poor job of pretending to be human, now, aren't I? But look at this. Yeah, hands in my pockets. I dunno why you humans do this shit, but look! I look like ten times more human now, don't I? I sure don't understand it though. My hands aren't cold, I don't need to get anything out of my pockets, but here I am, putting my hands in 'em, just lettin' the old hands hang out in the old pockets, there.

Shit, I wonder if that's the guy.

OK, OK, pal. I've had a few years of practice being human, thank you very much. I know that was in fact a woman. I was shitting you. You know? Making jokey? Ell oh ell? Oh, go fuck yourself.

I totally knew that was a woman. I'm pretty fucking good at pretending to be human.

Look, I'm risking losing my security clearance for this, I'm risking losing the whole assignment, but I gotta spill the beans to somebody, and you look like a trustworthy type. I'm gonna tell you the name of my target. Hell, maybe you can help me. Maybe this is kismet.

Listen, the guy I'm looking for, he's a real stodgy type. And get this. They named him after fucking logs! Lincoln. Abraham... Lincoln. Yeah, you heard me right. Only on Earth, right? This is such a fucked up motherfucker. So. You ever--

Oh... Oh. No, no way. Are you serious? Abraham Lincoln? He's... Oh, man. Ohhhh, shit.

Shit.

I can see it already. There go my organs. This is gonna be a hell of a year.

Shortly After The Calamity

2008-11-27T00:59:00.001-06:00

There's a man here, off to the side. He is half standing and half leaning against the filthy trash can he's found himself near. He's grizzled, sporting all sorts of beard, and gray all over. He is scratching himself compulsively and he appears to be suffering from a splitting headache. It's clear he's coming down off a drug, and it's just as clear to you what drug that is: It's Eldust, of course. Eldust is a killer.

As you walk by, he notices you with a hungry little start and you unholster your weapon immediately. Just a little 'thrower,' you call it, a little thing you invented a while back while you were getting ideas from the drugs. Naturally, you kicked the Eldust with the help of your Lord and Savior, Santa Claus, but you were one of the lucky ones. There's not a day you don't think about Eldust, but you can go without it. You can go along, keeping your thoughts safely inside your head, where you figure--thanks to the program--that they belong.

This man is a fine example of what happens to people who can't go along without the drug, whose realities have been completely changed to include and require its presence in their bodies. It's not pretty.

"Look, man, you got ...any Eldust?" the man asks. He shakes, sporadically, as though it's some sort of gesture punctuation for his speech. You would swear his bones are creaking. "All I need is some fucking Eldust, just a little Eldust so I can keep-- ahh--"

He screams, horribly and broken, like something is twisting him in knots, and grabs his head. As he buckles over in pain, you can clearly hear him gritting his teeth. Yes, the withdrawals were a bitch, but as long as--

Suddenly, all around you, blackness appears for an instant. Like a negative picture of a camera flash, everything's still there in that instant but everything gets dark, just for a moment, then it's all back to as normal as it gets. Just a drug addict dealing with a killer headache, in front of you, moaning in the worst pain he'll probably ever experience.

But now you have your thrower raised and pointing at the source of the problem. You have it pointed to kill in an instant, because it may well need to. The top of the junkie's skull will catch this shot and make a fairly rocky, eventful, and red journey into his chest cavity in about three seconds, or the instant that happens again. Whichever comes first.

"I don't have any Eldust, friend." you say, almost sadly. "And you have until I count ten to straighten up and look me in the eyes, and what I see had better not scare me or I will reach ten early." You tighten your grip on your weapon and calmly begin to count, inside your head. Not too fast, but then again, none too slow either. One... two...

Suddenly, he straightens, his body uncurling almost violently, and he gives you a maniacal look.

You just as abruptly have the bright idea to take a single large step backward. You adjust your aim in accordance with his adjustment in posture. However, you don't aim at the very top of the head anymore, but roughly at the nose.

Best bet is to blow the brainstem.

Three. He notices his situation.

"What--a gun--shit! Fine, man, forget the Eldust, man," he says, almost babbling, begging you as he raises his hands weakly, "but don't fucking shoot me man, I can contain it, Jesus!" He exhales sharply and, as if he is some kind of human balloon animal that lost all its pressure, this appears to cause him to buckle again. He supports his weight with his palms on his legs, though, and stares at the ground, just trying to relax. To regain control.

You calmly retake your aim. Four... five... ... six...

He takes a long, shuddering, deep breath, and you see a bit of the tension leave him. Unknown to him, a bit of the tension leaves your finger on the trigger of your very useful invention. If he's just gonna scream and puke, he's at least picked a fine and filthy trash can to do it near.

Suddenly he's looking at you, and you didn't see him straighten up, but like a flash there he is, and he's looking at you, and in his eyes wide now you see more than you want to--

Around you it's dark. Of course. And now, amidst some partially ruined buildings, you see Them. You see his own private ghosts. How fucking charming These appear to be fucking covered in blades are they made of scissors? Is he screaming? If they're made of scissors how are they slithering god you don't have enough rounds to kill them all

in the midst of your involuntary participation in his involuntary nightmare you find yourself, hilariously, thinking how very interesting this guy's externalized hallucinations are, i mean really, slithering scissor-men? and that thing They do where they extend one of Their limbs with a whip-snap to a length of ten silvered moonlit feet, shearing off the tops of lampposts now like they're sculptures made of butter or something, but sculptures that nonetheless crash to the pavement in a very real way, that's all very imaginative and yes he's definitely screaming like something got inside him and it's just figuring out how to use his lungs, he's using both fists to beat on his head, his fists bloody, his head bloody, not near bloody enough, Their awful fucking clanging as they come close is perhaps the worst thing on earth

Abruptly, with the last bit of self-control you have, you use your practice you put in while on Eldust (gotta have one good thing come of it, you suppose) to stop participating in this rapidly escalating Escape. It gets darker around you, and the nightmare gets more real, but it's not going to be your nightmare unless you let it. You aren't going to let it.

You look back and forth, see flashes of Them becoming more real, figuring out how to use Their brand-new spindly scissor-legs to move, to run, and the poor junkie in front of you still has bloody hands, but now they're just clamped to the sides of his bloody head like it's going to blow itself into pieces and he can stop it with his palms and his fingers. He's buckled over now, probably for good. And he's screaming, of course.

He is screaming like the worst thing that could ever possibly happen is happening to him, his body, everyone he cares about, and everything he sees. He is screaming like he's just discovered his very worst and most shapeless nightmares were real the whole time, and that he was just a hazy notion that his nightmares had thought up just so they could eat him at their leisure.

"Ten!" you shout, as you pull the trigger on your thrower. You're glad you can't see his eyes.

There's a flash of light, but no noise--you are not without a certain level of skill, after all--and the projectile, made of stuff you're not quite sure of, lances from the thrower and bloodies his head much more thoroughly. His skull, his higher brain functions, and his lower brain functions find themselves cohabiting quite unnaturally. He falls, and the sidewalk and the street get their red.

You holster your weapon, and resume walking down the nearly-abandoned street. Your instinct is that the scissor-men died with the brain that was generating them, but let's face it: Nobody really knows how this shit works.

Eldust, man.

It's a fucking killer.

Untitled

2008-11-25T15:53:00.001-06:00

i learned so many,
So many words
i used and misused
All the words that i heard
But no matter how many
Words i strung out
i could never quite
Never quite
Spell Your name out.

Another Snippet

2008-09-16T12:37:00.002-05:00

Oct. 8, 2130.

In a laboratory, on a windy fall day, Dr. W discovered that he needed a sweater. Being underfunded, the laboratory tended to be run at the minimum possible temperature.

He looked out the window while pulling on the gray-and-brown striped sweater he got from his wife for Christmas three years ago. The leaves blew everywhere. Soon enough, it would be snow instead. Something about this feeling - gray, bitter cold, bright yellow-and-orange leaves dancing in the empty street - gave him peace and a feeling of being oriented toward a purpose.

"Doctor, come over here. There's something I think that you should look at."

The doctor's assistant, standing at the table and looking into the twin eyepieces of a powerful microscope, was a very capable researcher but with no initiative or imagination to speak of. Bright, yet without any spark, Dr. W thought with dry amusement as he moved to the table where his assistant stood.

It is noteworthy that Jones, Dr. W's assistant, had in fact one of the least capable imaginative faculties of any human on Earth.

"What is it, Jones?" he asked, his assistant moving out of the way of the microscope as he approached.

"Well, Doctor..." he hesitated. "I put a small sample of the new high-temperature superconducting fluid we've been analyzing under the scope here. I was trying to view the fine microscopic structure of it, hoping to understand how it worked, but the more I look, the less sense this makes."

The fluid had been sent to them by a government-funded research facility in Antarctica. Some scientist there had "thought up" the formula during her daily meditation, in a flash of insight. It appeared to work as a high-temperature superconductor, as intended. The material had been found, in fact, to be superconductive at all temperatures short of roughly the boiling point of water.

Small samples of the material, as well as the formula for producing more, had been sent to certain publicly funded chemical labs for in-depth analysis. After all, Dr. W thought, it wouldn't do to try to use this stuff for some industrial purpose only to learn that some common material could cause it to stop conducting or even to catalyze an explosive reaction in the fluid. The Doctor bent at the waist and peered through the lenses with some interest.

"Well, I couldn't figure out what the structure of it was at first." Jones said. Dr. W squinted at the image, showing strange blobs of the transparent fluid, vastly magnified. They appeared to be moving almost of their own will, joining together into larger droplets, only to suddenly disperse into a large number of tiny droplets all at once.

"Look at it. See how they just suddenly stop moving sometimes?" Jones continued.

Abruptly, before the Doctor's eyes, the droplets froze, completely motionless. After two seconds, they appeared to thaw and resume their motion.

"I got bored of looking at them, wondering how they were moving in this strange way... starting and stopping like this. I was about to leave the microscope to start up an X-ray crystallographic scan, to see if I could find some answers. I thought, just as I was about to leave, that I saw some sort of extremely fine crystalline structure on the edges of the droplets while they were doing their 'frozen motionless' thing."

Dr. W saw that Jones was right. In fact, before his eyes, it was obvious that the droplets were crystallizing. A stairstep structure of microscopic, jagged ridges covered their surfaces slowly over the course of several seconds.

"Sure enough, they were crystallized. I didn't know how I failed to notice it before. But if they had this rigid crystal structure... how on earth had I just seen them flowing together and merging as if they were nothing more than drops of water?"

The Doctor had the same question in his own mind, as abruptly the crystalline droplets resumed their motion and began, impossibly, to flow together, passing through each other, joining, their crystalline features appearing to move together too like two sets of ripples in a pond. "What the devil is going on here, Jones?" he cried, unable to look away. "Is this a new state of matter?"

2008-08-22T14:56:00.001-05:00

HAMMER:
If they wanted to make
Another of you
They'd need to melt down
Ten of me.

ANVIL:
But if they melted down nine,
And 'twas you left behind,
I'd not have a heart,
Now, would I?

IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND

2008-07-05T23:42:00.001-05:00

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

"Telemarketer Defense Farming" has become a viable way for corporations to make money. Unable to fend off the ever-increasing maddening frequency of telemarketing phone calls alone, beleaguered consumers forward their holo-phone addresses to Telemarketer Defense Farms.
The TDF is a monthly subscription-based service where people in cubicles answer your phone calls in eight-hour shifts, brusquely put off telemarketers in your stead, and weekly forward you a terse, text-only digest of the two meaningful calls you received.

"HUSBAND CALLED - ON WAY HOME WILL PICK UP HAMBURGER FOR DINNER THURSDAY."
"YOUR CREDIT CARD INTEREST RATE HAS BEEN SLIGHTLY INCREASED TO 88 POINT 75 PERCENT."

This is a successful service for almost a decade until telemarketers retaliate, discovering a foolproof way of remotely causing near-fatal epileptic seizures in call recipients.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

Telemarketing firms shift focus, opting instead for pushing more lucrative "Anti-Seizure Protection Plans" - a monthly subscription-based service wherein the consumer must pay monthly to the corporation or face random holo-phone seizure calls, the consumer having little choice in the matter after the collapse of the TDFs.
Eventually all holo-phones are disconnected and Publisher's Clearing House goes back to telling the elderly that they have won a million dollars through the mail.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

Youths recreationally use hand-held devices known as "Chuckle-Boxes," technically illegal but in practice almost never regulated, designed to produce near-intolerable agony in the user. These devices are available at most mid-size or larger malls and grocery stores for seven million dollars each, when they are not completely sold out.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

A revolutionary breakthrough in publishing comes when a cheaply manufactured, trivially duplicated device is invented that, when embedded into the paper of a book's page, will play loud, high-quality sounds of the author's choosing when pressed slightly with a finger. The battery lasts for upwards of ten years and is easily replaced.
The first application of this technology, an experimental novel entitled "The Earth is Just a Hunk of Rock (But Worn Into a Home for God)," is actually very good and becomes a universally read classic, a best-seller on and off for years after.
This technology immediately takes off as a result of its success, and the "SoundBooks," rather than seeming like toys for children, gain a certain sophistication. Books without the "Press Here for Eerie Owl Sound" feature eventually become somewhat frowned upon as pedestrian.
Libraries sort of peter out.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

Pranksters, recording industry plants, and the gullible combine to render the modern incarnations of peer-to-peer file-sharing services fully unusable due to the proliferation of fake files, spam files, junk files, seizure files, and leaked government files.
Bizarrely, however, the most popular of these networks simply renames itself "VirusShare" and becomes a repository of trojan horse viruses and other undesirable programs, which the nerds of the future will use as a sort of digital museum or Pokédex of malware, competing to see who can "catch" the highest number of differing strains of a single virus, or the most esoteric collection of antiquated spyware. BonziBuddy, once again, becomes fine art.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND:

As an experiment, semi-amateur cybernetic programmers at a prestigious university code a small logic module. This set of routines is designed to sit above and encapsulate a regular program. Any time a branching decision in the main program is made, a call to the encapsulating routine results. Its purpose is to evaluate branching choices as "good" or "bad," on a scale incorporating a little logic about instruction efficiency and eliminating unnecessary steps, and a great deal of sheer nutty randomness.
In a twist, this subroutine is developed to have no actual effect on the execution of the underlying program whatsoever, having only an ability to pronounce near-meaningless "judgments" upon it. This results in the first program that isn't conscious but thinks that it is.
The difference between the two proves later to be nonexistent.

In the YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND ONE:

After months of exhaustive effort, telecommunications researchers invent at last a convenient way to thwart the "seizure call" attack, re-enabling the global holo-phone system. However, it is discovered that the vast majority of holo-phone users have become addicted to the seizures, using a gray-market device to convert their dormant holo-phones into "seizure machines."
The restoration of actual holo-phone communication is met, largely, with ambivalence.

The hot new experimental book, the scratch-and-sniff porno novel, is a total flop.

I made this.

2008-06-28T11:27:00.001-05:00

Now I can say I've done it.

I can't say I've done it well, though.

You Might Call This Nonfiction.

2008-06-26T23:48:00.001-05:00

I, as a Gmail user, have a little "Feed Bar" up top, which features links to sites I chose to see at some long-forgotten point during the Gmail account creation process. There's a weblog on there that frequently gets linked, that I'm not going to namedrop because I would rather not this weblog come up if you search for that weblog on Google.

I like to click the links to this weblog when they come up and look at the crazy foods the author likes to make. These foods are always insane, like "Cheeseburgers Made out of Quinoa and Sand" or "Vanilla-Spiced Tofu Noodles with Chard."

It's always tofu. Or sand.

But my favorite part of this weblog is the comments. I like to read what people say and imagine what they really mean. For instance, "This is brilliant! I'm totally going to make this today!" means "I never actually cook, but I sure love postin' comments on weblogs!!"

Of course, "This looks excellent." or any variant of that general idea actually means "Postcount++ - and I wouldn't actually feed this to an animal unless I hated the animal personally" in the worst case, and "Postcount++ - this is a very good photograph of a dish I would never, ever cook or eat" in the best case.

My personal favorite is, "Great recipe, but I was thinking - what if you replaced the fennel with a diffusion of rennet and head cheese??" - which means "Not only am I not going to cook this, but if I actually did intend to cook it, you're doing it wrong."

I have to suppose that, by and large, if you've got a weblog about food on the internet, and you open it up for comments in the hope that people will provide intelligent feedback on your recipes, or trip reports, or really anything remotely meaningful, that's what's called "wishful thinking."

Speaking of wishful thinking, this weblog is currently open to all comments, but comments are moderated. The fact is, the V1AG__r4 spammers don't even know I'm here, so thinking not only that I will get comments, but that I will get so many that I will have to throw some of them out, is doubly wishful thinking.

If I get a chance, though, I'll post my recipe "Peanut and Radish Gelato with Horseradish Paste." It's perfect for a hot summer day when you're looking for something savory, yet icy; salty, yet fundamentally repugnant. As an added bonus, if you are facing execution and you ask for it as your last meal, you will be killed early.

In other news, I was thinking about something two or three days ago. Stephen King comes to mind for certain, but a few other authors have stated something to this effect: "I write because if I didn't write, I feel like I'd end up with brain problems. Writing is a safety valve for my insanity." Well, it may not be original, but I'm saying it about myself anyway.

A Snippet

2008-06-20T20:08:00.001-05:00

THE TERRALLIANCE WORD
p. E7

Quantum Drive Becoming Increasingly Risky, Dangerous, Say Experts
By HORACE FARSIGHT
June 19, 2137

PARADISE, LUNA -- On Luna, it isn't all margaritas and sim-suites. Even in the decadent city of Paradise, Science is hard at work. The Human spreads itself rampantly through the cosmos, leaving the ruin of Terra and justly fulfilling Manifest Destiny II. But at what cost to space-time itself comes the Quantum Inseparable Drive we use to touch the farthest stars? Evidence indicates the truth is worse than we could have imagined.

The Boulder Group, a TeraCorp-funded team of researchers named rather whimsically after TeraCorp's pre-Calamity Terrestrial home of Boulder, CO, have concluded a five-year analysis of the effects of QID drive on the quantum mesh.

The QID drive works in a way that has no ready non-quantum analogue. The Drive uses a revolutionary method of passive demi-measurement to collect spatial relatedness vectors from its surroundings. It then hooks its own quantum signature to that of its surrounding space, and once correlation is achieved, it begins replacing quantum-scale structures in its surroundings with copies of structures from its intended destination. As this process advances, the device's position becomes increasingly uncertain. Once the correlation is complete, the Drive discards its own connection to the space in which it physically resides, and its location becomes certain quite abruptly at its destination. To wit: it does not move, it simply changes places.

The Drive, invented almost 30 years ago by publicly funded Science, has seen near-constant use after its initial, accidental discovery. The occasional accidents relating to its use were imputed to a field imbalance caused by inaccurate manufacture, but TeraCorp, who lost hundreds of thousands of educated, hardworking employees in the 2130 disaster involving translating an entire research colony to Alpha Centauri, has gone on record as being "fully convinced" that it was due to an underlying flaw in the still-nascent technology.

"TeraCorp believed that something goes wrong when you try to enlarge the field past a diameter of roughly 80 meters," Project Lead Gibbons of Boulder Group explained in an interview. "The Centauri Accident was blamed in the media on the Corp's manufacturing process, but TeraCorp didn't see it the same way. Many of the Corp's employees who were destroyed in the Accident still have families in Under-Terra who will never see them again. The Corporation have had myself and the rest of the Group working on examining minute side-effects of the Drive's quantum dislocation technology for the past five years."

"Well, at last the news is in, and it isn't any good," said Gibbons. "We've been very thorough. Here on Luna we do have the opportunity, relatively far away from the aftermath of the Calamity, to analyze the subtle effects the Drive has on the local spatial matrix in which it finds itself."

Bespectacled, pale, and apparently wasting slightly in Luna's low gravity, Gibbons looked to this reporter not at all as if she had spent the last five years in Paradise. Ordinarily, Luna's gravitation is augmented by Whisper Generators, but a hole had to be cut deliberately in the Whisper field to accommodate the unique spatial needs of the Boulder lab.

"We've done thousands of experiments here. We've ruled out all alternate theories. More will come forth, but at this point it's a question for the mathematicians how to interpret these results. Based on what we know, it's crystal-clear, and iron-clad: The QID drive causes subtle but steady derangement of the quantum foam."

Asked how bad the damage could be, Gibbons shook her head. "The Drive can never be used again. The Drive may well have brought the Calamity. Even though the Calamity is in the past of the Drive, relative to our own time-stream, use of the Drive in all probability drew it to us across the space-time mesh."

What happened next must be said. This reporter apologizes for any emotional disturbance this may cause. After her statement, in full view of two corroborating witnesses and a vidcorder drone, the body of Project Lead Gibbons warped visibly, her head -- indeed, her skull -- bending upward and to the right for an instant. Her entire form flickered and snapped out for the briefest of moments in the exact manner of a garbled video transmission.

The vidcorder drone has record of nothing but a sudden, wild burst of static for exactly 3.2 seconds before and after this event. To anyone who is old enough to remember the Calamity, however, as this reporter unfortunately is, it was a sight all too familiar.

"I see I have your attention, Reporter Farsight. I must reiterate." Gibbons said. "And you must print it a second time in your publication. The Drive can never be used again."

An Addendum

2008-06-15T09:55:00.001-05:00

The question left for the reader is, of course: Was that a "good wish" or a "bad wish?"

I'm not advocating killing yourself. I am simply suggesting that to live is to want things until you die.

I think it was a bad wish because, while it would be good to be detached from wants, the price would be total nonexistence - a very high price.

A Parable

2008-06-10T14:33:00.001-05:00

HAMMER: I had a dream last night.
ANVIL: Oh yeah? Tell me about it.

H: Well, I dreamed I had just been born into the world. And of course it was like the Big Bang occurring because of course, for me, there had been basically nothing.
A: Yeah.

H: But then all of a sudden, right, there was everything. So I was just busy being for the first time, and I realized all of a sudden that it wasn't the first time.
A: Oh?

H: I realized I'd been born before! And right then, I realized I could make a wish for my life, a single germinating wish that would expand as I grew.
A: Wow! This is a really deep dream.

H: Sure was, Anvil. I looked back over all my birth-wishes I'd made over all my past lives. I thought that I would wish for a million wishes--
A: Yeah, sure. And then what, you get to make a million wishes but don't really get any of them granted, right.

H: Heh, exactly. You've had this dream before, Anvil?
A: Something like that.

H: Well, yeah. I remembered that that wish never turns out too well. I thought that I would wish to have all my wishes granted--
A: Sure, and--

H: Don't you dare finish my sentence Anvil. I knew if I wished to have all my wishes granted, all my life I'd get all I wanted, and when I died I would really have learned nothing.
A: Right. There are a lot of bad wishes. So what did you wish for?

H: I think you'll like this, Anvil. I wished for the best wish I could think of - to my knowledge, one I had never made before. I wished to never want to wish for anything.
A: Wow! That's kind of brilliant, Hammer! What happened next?

H: I got my wish, and I died. Then I woke up.

Wow, that was some shit!

2008-06-08T22:59:00.001-05:00

My Dildoprex HANK article seemed funnier while I was writing it at 1:30 AM. However, it does have a certain charm. If I have a complaint about it, it's that it's basically the same kind of "HAHA WACKY RANDOM ZANY" crap you would fault your college roommate for making you read on the internet. But it was fun to write.

If I had two complaints, the first would be RANDOM ZANY, and the second would be that in one of my carefully written descriptive paragraphs, I used the word "clear" or "clearly" about a badillion times.

Regardless, the Photoshop was fun, as well. The best part is the clouds in the background came from a photo I shot.

for all the hammer's brashness
it is seldom
the anvil
that breaks.

More here when I'm up to it.

An Urgent Message

2008-06-04T23:15:00.002-05:00

[note: click the image for a slightly bigger, but no better photoshopped, version!]

I'd like to take a break from frivolous concerns to talk of something of great importance.

Ass Bowels.

If you're like me, and your ass bowels are in rough shape, with expulsions everywhere and general hootenanny of the colon, I heartily recommend this new medication, developed by a crack team of gynecologists in sunny Zamibia. Dildoprex HANK is not like the Dildoprex that may or may not have caused you to be born with birth defects. Reformulated for today's hard-charging, fragrant concertgoing youth, Dildoprex HANK is almost entirely without the risk of explosive renal failure you may be accustomed to from older, more busted formulations of Dildoprex.

Dildoprex is not a drug. Dildoprex is different.

The best way to describe Dildoprex HANK is to imagine for oneself a brightly lit, used, but freshly whitewashed canvas, ready for a new painting. This canvas is stretched across a balsawood frame, sitting on a worn easel in the living room of a mid-size one-floor bungalow. Next to the easel, sitting carelessly on the floor, is a palette. On this palette are various, warmly colored splashes of paint. Some are wet, and glisten cheerfully in the light; others are old and dried, stubbornly clinging through repeated scrapings. On the palette, carefully set so as to avoid rolling onto the drab, orange-red carpet, is a single, stiff-bristled paintbrush, recently dipped in rich cerulean.

Through the window, the sun shines on the canvas, and through the dappled pattern of brightness the previous painting is barely visible through the whitewash. It's a painting of an eagle, and though only fragments of it can be seen, it is clear the painter was a master of shading. Even through the whitewash, it's clear the painter's previous effort is largely an attempt to work through an incomplete understanding of artistic perspective. This failing is forgivable as it was clearly a work of learning, and, moreover, a work of love.

One looking at this scene, enjoying the fragrant breeze blowing through the open window, might feel almost melancholy. As a painter, or perhaps even as one who merely knows a painter, or has thought about painting before, one must realize that to use this canvas would obliterate at last the ephemeral, yet still very visible last traces of a tragically imperfect work discarded, perhaps, too soon. One lets the tears fall where they will. After a time, the painter must set to work, and soon there is real progress being made as the artist loses him- or herself in the craft once again.

In this allegory, it is very clear that you are the artist. You are the one holding the brush and majestically blocking in stripe after stripe of cerulean and slate gray. You are the one contemplating an inner vision that will bring joy to their hearts. Dildoprex HANK is part of this vision.

Dildoprex HANK is an icicle formed from the shit of a bear.

As you can clearly see, these are important matters. Don't let this opportunity fall by the wayside. If it were me, and it is, I would advise anyone, and especially you, to seize the chance to purchase this magic preparation from the brilliant chemists of Zamibia. Do not wait until the FDA gets hold of this miracle pill. They wouldn't understand.

Only you understand. You are so beautiful.

So, so, fucking beautiful.

Save your Ass Bowels with Dildoprex HANK.

poetry/junkyard

2008-06-04T16:04:00.003-05:00

he stares into the ruddy sun that rises in the west
this unwise man is laughing now - laughing last, and laughing best.

Hmm, I dunno.

You crossed a thousand years
Oblivious to your assemblage

What's that about?

Wisdom speaks with caution's voice
or
Lonely speaks with winter's voice
I like this construction but have never found a use for it.

Out there beyond our galaxy
Beyond many galaxies
In an inky Blackness
It Waits.
Its Body made of Atoms
Its Atoms do nothing but Think.
These Thinking Atoms
Are in the shape of Gears.
Millions and
Millions and
Millions of Gears.
Its Gears do nothing but Grind.
It Waits
And it Thinks
And it Chews
And it Searches.
It is the size of a Sun.
It is in no hurry
It has all the Time there is
To Eat.

I've got a bag of words!

2008-05-31T17:41:00.000-05:00

If only it were that simple.