"My
name is Sigma-Alpha-47. I'm 26 years old, clean and sober.” He
wears a crew cut, mustache and eyes beaded so far back under eyebrows
they might have disappeared. “Married , almost - - We - - I - - I
was almost married. "
“Sorry
about the wife”. Pushing. “My gig is who what when - - - “
“I
know the rap, Mr Scranton. The militia know you. Forward march!”
“Your
WANTED picture is on every Post Office wall in New Jersey. Marching
is the last - - - you were military, then?” Caught that; he's no
fool.
“Sigma
platoon, Alpha ranger company, the division it doesn't matter any
more. Honorable discharge for wounds I received in the Tongaland
conflict.” His head shook as if to say 'what a waste'. “We never
put more than a brigade on the ground; not enough to flank Boko Haram
columns, but enough to get killed. I fought at China ridge and
Bankottati. Lots of black-pants volunteers protecting the Chinese
diamond mines; lots were advisors to Boka warlords !” He raised a
pantleg and the coarse scar ran screaming knee to ankle. “Ball-buster
mine, but it fired low. Bronze star - - -” Chills and shivering;
“Sure I knew about the American uprisings. But, I never even
considered the militia; thought they were a meth-head Nazi fringe.”
He had enough and just stopped talking.
The
long hoot of a local train came and went. “President Clintons war
gone bad. Perhaps a different pants-suit would help.”
SA-47
never laughed. “Has she
started
walking again? Our Majors and Colonels told us Clinton had little
control. One of Obama.nations affirmative action 3-star generals, a
brother of Jeh Johnson was running the show. Bastard smoked a pipe
like MacArthur and didn't care how many white infantry got killed to
protect the HIV ravaged Bantu.” His voice tailed off ... Gulls dove
low, over the stone groin following a wind bitter and determined.
Long Island Sound breeds that kinda wind like Long Island breeds
liberals - - We waited on the gulls. Their shrieking cries
drown
out his voice. Then - - "Once Charlie Company landed Bantu
savages pelted in from every Liberian ghetto in Africa. We killed
with honor, and I was glad to get out.”
“More
women in New York.”
“More
drugs in Tongaland.” I was supposed to shut up. “Back
home I chose technical study
-
BS Iowa State, Masters in EE Rensselaer
Poly.
Before I shot Professors Stanwick and Rosen I worked for CKNY, SVD
analysis in the ADC human factors - - - "
Haunted,
hunted militia eyes I saw
before.
His eyes burned right through the drifted snow. But, no way Jose. I
hadn't flown cross-country to collect an alphabet. "Heh,
pad're," I rapped casually, "slow it down." A crust of
frozen brine spray I wiped from my mouth - taste bitter as NE
December wind. I lit a Camel. "Ya gotta talk to the
computationally dis-inclined. My viewers - - HRI viewers don't always
do arithmetic so well --- or anagrams ..."
"Sorry
- - I'm just - - my girlfriend Sari - - on Saturdays, she liked
driving the Ford pick-em-up out to Long Island. Her two girls - -
they liked the ocean breeze. Fresh air, clean - - you know - - "
Tobacco
smoke bit at my lungs and I hacked. "Yeah, pad're ... life can
be OKey. Now - - what's with the ADC? Classical music, huh ... yeah
right. Not a sneeze_rock group was it ... hehe ..."
SA_47
-- his face blank as a face can be and still breath. He said. "No
Mr. Scranton. ADC -- where I worked - - Advanced Dynamical
Computation. Our lab ... we measured and modeled human group behavior
under stress."
"Like
fans at a horse race? But, not like now, huh ...?"
His
voice quavered. "I don't do models any more. That's right."
"Which
models did you do?"
"We
extracted stressors from public rave phys-mo - - physical motion - -
data to support New Yorks ACHU laws."
"The
AUDIO CRIMES of HATE UNITS ... yeah ... you worked with Stanwick and
Rosen?"
"Worked
for - - not with. Mostly for Stanwick. He was the environmental
culture guru. Human behavior is determined by local, current
environmental pressure ... a social tensor not a force; like Maxwells
Equations in a dielectric. Push, pull, shear and twist, find your
crowd and cry out loud. That jingle was his scientific position."
"Well
yeah --- tensor, force --- I get twisted up every day.” I tried
lighting a camel and the wind blew it out. Not good. “And you
measured those group interactions?"
"Yes
we did, Mr Scranton. We calibrated, normalized, measured, recorded
and databased them by-the-millisecond. Before publishing the results
got passed up-the-chain so any illegal pleasures or relationships
could be identified and prosecuted.”
"Prosecuted!
Hell of a threat to the research groupies. How did you convince them
to join?
“Money,
partly, money and status. Rich young bitches too expensive or too
bored to fuck on a Friday night date figured they would never be
arrested. The cat-walk crowd considered the privilege to be worked-on
by Rosen.”
“Sort
a' Rosen-da-riveter, eh. How was he actually involved?"
"Rosen
- - as a full tenured Professor in the same department, and a genetic
determinist he could damn well do as he pleased. He believed in
hardwire heaven, where dense weaves of entangled wave-functions squeezed out Quantum uncertainty. Find the gene you know the teen. Sure, it's a joke.
For the book he was Stanwicks nemesis."
"Nemesis,
huh. Office politics? Who's first name on the grant, office size,
who’s stuck with freshman honors, who screws the juiciest grad
roundheels. They hated each-other!"
SA-47
stared out over the frozen, wind-bleached sound. "Hate?
Technically, yes. In the journals, yes - - but, best of friends,
actually, those two. Colleagues, collaborators and conspirators.
Belonged to the same clubs, same Rabbi, hired the same tailor and
lived next door to each-other across this flatland, on Long Islands
south coast. Best friends? Pre-read each-others papers, so no later
critique was unexpected and unconnected critics got crushed. They
even married each-others cousin ..."
“Was
Sari an American girl?”
Ice
crust had formed on his eyebrows and he chipped it off. “Sari --”
cold rattled the name between his teeth. “American in everything,
but birth. Born in Kuching, provincial merchant class, got raped in a
Malaysian high-school, pregnant --- birthed twins. Her choice was
simple. Either stay at home, as a Muslim whore or immigrate.” His
eyes leveled on mine. “As Sari related, 'my family insisted on
purdah and my brother swore slander on my head, an honor killing
should I leave the family protection'. Those stones don't
role!”
Snow
had sifted over my boots and I kicked it away. “But, she better
move fast,” I considered and wind ripped the words from my mouth.
“Fast
Sari could do. A family friend in PASSPORTS and TRAVEL greased the
skids; she had been a hostess on a three-plane Somalia airline and
knew plenty. A US job was even simpler through LinkedIn. Slave labor
you know _ _ _ Sari got an offer, a plane ticket and green-card fast,
cause she self-learned IBM Z8 assembler. She already had a passport;
each month she reported to the main Thailand office, working for a
company logging teak and mahogany for plywood.”
“Family
didn't mind her stepping out?”
“Political
thing. The Thais sold to American retail, and had to prove they
employed female professionals. Malaysian women were considered sluts;
involved families traded her work for a Thai maid. Sari wore a
semi-burka outside the city, and her brother took most of her
paychecks for gambling.”
“Nice
family; I know a few. But, what’s a Thai - - or Malaysian logging
company doing with an IBM mainframe,” I asked skeptical?
“Helps
to have a cousin in the Sunni royal family. US military aid was sold
to the highest bidder, and a kickback returned to some American
political rainmaker. Give it to the wogs. Their ex-diktator fucked
all over and the Malaysian Immans kept track. Sari had her place.”
The
sucker-play smelled miles away. “There! But, she wasn’t nothing
here.”
“Nothing
at all. The New York furniture company that hired her fired her when
she wouldn’t fuck for the boss-man. Down and out like a West
Virginia coal miner. She slept on floors and for peanuts did traffic
flow design on her laptop.” I passed over a chrome flash and we
both gulped like a hot throat was warm. “Music saved her Mr
Scranton - - if save is the right word. We met at a NYPhil rehearsal
--- Wagner! They only charge you one-third ticket prices to listen
from the balcony and, well one thing led to another.”
“So
you helped!”
“Fuck
yes I helped. My position was solid, work highly rated and academic
contacts easy to make. Stanwicks riff I knew and he paid for it.
Programmers, I knew them too from Atlantic City to Quebec. Short
order, really with Saris talent snagging a job at the Adel Riverine
Institute. Top drawer. She wrote self-modifying code for flow
modeling of the Hudson River. You know up-and-down, side-to-side,
woops there's a dead body!” SA-47 couldn't laugh at his own joke,
but I did. He finished. “You wonder why fish don’t swim past the
Statue of Liberty?”
Damn
was it cold. I wore a wool pork-pie that couldn't touch an ear.
“Never tried fishing there.”
He
didn’t laugh. “Anyrate, her research boss was a decent fella and
raved about her work. Top drawer. Department wanted to pay for
half-time computer studies. They contacted CKNY. That’s when
Stanwick and Rosen heard her name. Psychology Departments stock up on
heavy-weight coders to massage their bullshit data into something
tolerable. Sari said it was the same in Malaysia ”
“Last
name?”
“Sari?
You can’t pronounce it.”
“OKey
I’ll just write.”
“You
can’t spell it.” I pocketed my plastic stencil-pad. “One night.
Mr Scranton when Sari had returned from class - - to my north Italian
Ravioli and both kids asleep - – her tight pumpkin colored body was
curled around mine like a boa and she said. 'Andrew,
why they know nothing?'
“Who
I asked. She kissed me. 'My
fellow students. Some graduate from Harvard and can't build a STRUCT.
Others fail to perform POINTER
arithmetic!
You
could
read
about that 50 years ago. Old white men wrote it.”
“Yeah
- - - they did - - we did once. When workers considered it their job
to push the best man for'ard. But, now - - schools are afraid, Sari,
schools and professors afraid that racism or ACHU laws will be used
against them if stupid people are not passed on.”
“What
stupid people are allowed in my class? What race is this?”
SA-47 wore a ski-cap and he pulled it down against a flurry of snow.
“She held her arm against mine and in the windows twilight glowed
simply man and woman.”
“Yeah
yeah well that's romantic as cold Hades. Some dark-sites claim Rosen
needs to beat his women before he can get off. Doesn't treat his
animals any better. I hear they study cats nine to a cage.” How
subtle could I be?
“Yep,
cause the square-root of nine is three. But, you’re close to the
right idea Mr. Scranton.”
Smartass
could'a been more subtle. “Last time I took a square root was in
seventh grade. Don’t think our teacher liked my answer.” My Zippo
lit the next Camel and it fumed like a steam engine. “But I mean
Sari was a prime mark for both Rosen and Stanwick.”
SA-47
jumped from the bench, wandered into the trees and then back out.
“Fucking stupid me I never saw it, the grift steaming right toward
her! Sari, a successful minority succeeding against all odds.
Stanwick pimps for the who-she-knew crowd, and that who is me. Rosen
butters the hyper-intelligent Asian bread, a noble savage for all the
trouble she causes. Sari gets squeezed between their conflicting
agendas and I get to lubricate!” He took a Camel, lit and tried to
smoke it. “I never figured they could force her as a student to
join one of their volunteer research squads.”
“Squad,
like the Army!”
“No
question! Bastards worked it slippery. If she wouldn't join a squad
they would declare her unfit for the computer classes; either too
stupid because of her accent and self-taught skills , or too smart so
embarrassing to all local affirmative action students. That would be
a clear violation of the ACHU laws. Of-course volunteers all got
vetted and paid by the Feds.”
“Vetted?”
“Feds
want to make sure all students have an equal chance of failure; no
personal advantage allowed from family, experience or genes. It was
yes or no and at first I couldn't help her. After joining they put
her on a drug therapy - - ZomBimbs they were called - - because she
was judged too optimistic and aggressive! Rosen is an MD/PhD with
access to all the recent mind-twisting shit, straight from NIH labs.
He can test, prescribe and medicate. Sari was zoned out of her mind
within a month. She starts failing muscle-memory and eye-reflex
tests, and stopped calculating Greens functions on her daughters
etch-a-sketch. She just got slower. Stanwick jumps on that as a clear
marker of local socialization dependency.” SA-47 finished with the
Camel, half-way and butted it out. “About that time I asked Sari to
marry me!”
“You
were living together?”
“Third
story walk-up in a gentrified stone tenement. By then different
addresses same apartment . I knocked a hole in the joining wall, put
in a 19-th Century walnut and brass door and never looked back. Iron
claw-foot tub. Landlord promised an elevator real-soon-now. Sari
laughing picked a California King cause then I'd need to scramble
under Ju-Jitsu moves to get at her. Her kids knew about bad men and
never peeped, even to their friends. When the drug issue hit home I'd
weaned her away from ZomBeez; Camel straights did the trick! Sexier
than ever, she returned to the tack-sharp behaviors that got her the
original offers. Adel Institute promoted her.”
“But
Stanwick found out.”
“Sari
faked stupid, faked the zoned-out zombie-mode in group testing. She
said Rosen never took his eyes from her ass. But other students knew.
How can you hide being the best? She just had to help some weak-links
- - - she cried about it. One round-heel D+ bitch who was fucking
Stanwick spilled beans. Anyway, Stanwick knew Sari aced her C++ final
exam, then figured two plus two. Class was over and she escaped for
the month between terms. Rosen and Stanwick choked and ranted and
threatened, but even they couldn't turn CKNY bureaucracy on a dime
and Sari passed with honors. Then three weeks ago Stanwick called me
into his office; his sec called it a friendly chat.”
“Attacking
you?”
SA-47
let the question slide by. “No department or university officers
were present. That's called I think plausible deny-ability! In
addition to Stanwick and Rosen there was a long-faced, tweedy Gub'mnt
bitch and a Wall Street suit dressed for Costatas. Both were pissed
off and all , but ignored the profs. She wasn't about to get laid and
he wasn't about to waste time.”
He
said. “I'm attorney Wills, Andrew. I represent interested parties
who donate millions to charitable research programs. Rosen and
Stanwick benefit from those donations, as does the forwarding of - -
- of knowledge. Your bedmate has become a tactical problem. She will
be shipped back to Malaysia ASAP.”
“She
said. “The United States Government does not tolerate immigrant
freaks disturbing its program agenda. Native affirmative action
survivors bless them will NOT be out-performed by derelict
immigrants. Sari whatzernam will be expatriated within the week; or
within the day if we can find her.”
Stanwick
said. “Better talk to your supervisor, Andrew. I believe you are
fired.”
Rosen
said. “Corrupting a research survey by falsifying drug therapy is a
felony. The survey data somehow slipped passed our firewall. A Slovak
darknet spread it; now competitors are asking embarrassing questions.
Our attorneys have put locks on your bank checking and Fidelity
investment and savings. Don't even try to break those locks, legal or
otherwise; you could be in jail by dinner-time!”
“They
can't do that. Not even now.”
The
storm had blown up from north reaches of Long Island Sound.
White-caps crashed, ice floes snapped one into another, and the
blizzard all, but whited out parkland trails and trees and tourist
buildings. Temps had dropped five-degrees and breath-mist enveloped
us both. GO-PROs lens had iced-over and the digi-cam buried in noise.
We sheltered behind the museum and its brick-wall storage of Indian
and colonial artifacts , and the exhaust blown by an AC vent seemed
like an oven.
“Can't?
You say they can't Mr. Scranton, but two beefy black and blonde-hair
gestapo burst into Rosens office, slamming back the door and
scattering chairs. Both carried Glock-40s and clamped meat-fisted
hands on my shoulder.” 'You're
outa here, pal growled the blonde bitch.'
Cuffs were on and I was hustled out the door without a last word.
Another squad met me at the parking lot with a bag of my office desk
trinkets. 'Take
five minutes to be off the property,
Blonde growled “or
you're
in
aggravated trespass.'
He touched his Glock. 'Oh
yeah you better take this.'
He dropped Sari engagement ring into my hand.
I
Zippoed two Camels; he smoked one. I said - - - Sari !”
I
rushed home Mr Scranton; my apartment door was splinters on the
floor. We had been broken open, invaded, destroyed. Except for a
blood-smear on the kitchen wall, Sari and the kids were gone. I
called the cops and got a BUZZ-CLICK-BUZZ - - digital voice, 'Weather
conditions have closed all city roads. No patrol cars are available
until tomorrow noon.' My cell-phone coded out-of-the-system they
had covered all bases. I wasn't getting to the airport. Any airport,
but I took one last fling.”
My
head was racing. “Costatas!”
SA-47
was unmoving, his cheeks blue and nose red as a pepper. “War
lessons were coming back to me. JI-Haid taught lots, though most
soldiers refused to think about the worst. In our lab the issue was considered too deep to be casually spoken"
"What's casual?" My wool hunters coat was scratching and pulling the neck loose let cold burrowed in.
"That people destroy eachother? Sartre had that pegged long ago, him or Thucydides."
"No, Mr Scranton, not the phenomenology, but the ontology; Whether evil is hard-coded into our reptile brain,
or a neural space just sleeps, waiting for some minor key." SA-47 stomped his feet, got up and circled the bench. "Guess the blood set me off.
First, I pried up floor-boards from the kids room and from a cubby extracted my 357-cal
Dan Wesson. Six-inch barrel and loaded with military steel-points.
Call it a souvenir. A spare twelve-round carry followed, with leather
boots and a bugout bag, something Sari never approved of. Less than
two hours since Rosen struck and cold vengeance had penetrated my soul.”
“Bugout
bag? You weren't urban preppers, you and Sari?”
“I
made the girls share carrying that bag when we hiked the Adirondacks.
They knew it held our chocolate bars so they didn't mind. Sari
scolded me, said I needed a spanking, but I might like it too much.”
SA-47 voice had broken and he fought for control. I'd done that - -
once - - now he continued. “Then to the 5-star steakhouse. I had
taken Sari to Costatas twice before. I proposed there, hiding the
diamond under a slice of Key-lime pie. Using cut-alleys I could trick
the distance to eight blocks from our tenement.”
“Early
diners by the time you got there?”
“Lights
were all on, and one couple was just entering, another leaving. I had
been wrong, Mr Scranton. The tweedy Federal bitch WAS going to get
laid. At first table left of the redwood doors, a space with its own
glass pane for expos'e, there sat Rosen, Stanwick and the Federal.
Their faces came up big as pumpkins, each with a Halloween smile. She
had changed to a blouse showing all tit and was smoking an
electro-cig; Rosen a Partegas and he blew hot Cubano smoke around her
breasts. Stanwick sat kat-corner, one hand around a scotch tumbler,
his left under the table doing what it did best. All strictly
forbidden and smoke wreathed them like Christmas bunnies.”
“No
protection?”
“Cold
had partially frosted the glass pane. I circled the snowy, empty
block. New York is wealth and wealth does not favor the militia.
Bantus still rape and pillage, but nothing new there for the
globalist Federals to buy off. After waiting across the street for
ten minutes I identified as protection only the waist-coated doorman,
his 32-caliber Barrette bulging from a back pocket. I approached
smiling, and slammed his head with the 357-cal gun-butt. He went down soft as
a snowflake.”
Silent snow; I bogarted the Camel and even the wind stopped. "Think you're G*ds snowflake?"
"By then - - just the wind, Mr Scranton. My 357-cal is single action, so I cocked the trigger without really aiming and fired through the glass.”
“Newspapers
reported only Rosen and Stanwick were shot from inside, close up,
assassination style. Nothing about the Federal female.”
“Figures
they would - - and wouldn't. The Fed bitch should not have been
there, so media whores made-it-so. Death scene was Photo-shopped! In Somalia we learned to shoot fast and hit targets through
shit; urban warfare makes that a go-two. Costatas dinner table was
easy. They all died with their mouths open. I shot each twice, once
in the neck and once in the head as we did to Somalia Bantu. They
were a hard kill; these three gushed blood and floated away like
dark, irritated angels. Alarms went off and I ran.”
Whistles
and bells - - alarms went off now, at the train station one-hundred
yards away. Incoming local, heading for Manhattan. I needed to catch
it. We both started up the frozen path, the station building nearly
obscured by blowing snow. He carried a long plastic gun-case in his
left hand while his right stayed in a pocket. I said. “You have
friends in town?”
“No,
not that kind. The militia found me, tucked me under their skirts and
hustled three of us out to a Long Island beach-town. Their computers
had recovered about 90% of my savings in gold coin. Money and me, stored in
an empty loft since this town's dead as dodos during winter.” He
thought. “I've told you too much already. If the Federals scrape
your brain - - - “
“Never
happened. Feds don't want the publicity. Never will happen to Will
Scranton. I carry a capsule under my left bottom wisdom tooth. One
bite and it's over.” The train station platform was yards away.
“What's next SA-47?”
“
I
thought about that. No woman no friends no job. I can't use your
solution - - Catholic ya know - - Think I'll just work my way up the
command ladder. Rosen didn't scheme on his own provenance. Next
person up-the-chain gave him orders. A vipers nest. Mebby the Wall
Street suit gives lots of orders.”
I
tapped his guncase and dragged deep on the Camel. “Mebby he got you
out of town.”
He
wrenched sideways, clawed at his own face. SA-47 would not tolerate that idea.“ I find that
next person and put him down. Since power links to power I move on to
another and yet another, higher ranked gestapo - - - and the next until I make a mistake
and go down myself. I will try going down ugly, like the Boko belly-bombers. If the militia needs work done I can't ignore
them.” SA-47 smiled for the first time. “The militia think my
fight is also theirs. Can't quite see through it yet, but the
steel-tipped bullets are free.”
Again
the train-whistle, closer and more lonely. Sari and SA-47, two lovers they're gone everywhere, but - - - he turned, walked away and
the blizzard swallowed him.
We're
home with another HRI. Returning to port, Ladies and gentlemen good
night. .
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