Beginning of NANOWRIMO piece...
Nov. 7th, 2004 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
benchiladaHere are the first 1500 words of my NANOWRIMO (www.nanowrimo.com) book.
I haven’t even re-read it yet, I figure I’ll send it out before I even glance through it.
This is the roughest draft imaginable, but I suppose that’s part of the point of this exercise, isn’t it?
Moving on:
---
Sometimes it feels like cheating. Then I realize that it I didn’t cheat, there’s a chance I’d lose, and since losing means dying, they can fuck themselves. Well, they could if I weren’t fucking them first.
That’s me with the fancy gun and the fancy eye and the suit tailored for maximum killing efficiency and simultaneous impressive fashion statement. A bullet through your head while my coattails whip menacingly in the wind. Spike my hair and call me anime, young man!
The sub-government put the little machines in me, and the little machines rebuilt my eye. And the sub-government built me a gun to go with it. Now wherever I point my gun I see a little red dot exactly where the bullet will hit. I can even use the thing with parabolic arcs. Running away? A quick second of adjustment and your spine will explode as a bullet with your name smashes into it. That’s the only hard part. Scratching “Your Name” on every bullet.
Security guards are waiting when my elevator’s doors open. I’m ready, splayed across the floor of it, their bullets whizzing well overhead. Less than two seconds of sing along with the bouncing red dot and I’ve thinned out the ranks of former college football players by four. I take a few seconds and take off my shoes, leaving them in the path of the elevator door’s sensor.
I’m not worried about the security cameras. We’ve got tricks for them, too. By the time the “proper” authorities get here, all they’ll see is one of the Golden Girls doing rather nasty things to their property and their men. Well, same thing.
Better life through geriatric comedies about sex and Alzheimer’s, that’s what I’m all about right now.
I’m too busy laughing about a porn I saw the other day called The Real Golden Girls as the last two bastard-protectors nearly get a drop on me. My dramatically billowing coat makes me a bigger target than I really am, and one squeezes off a shot that tears a hole through the jacket. I try not to think about how fixing a hole in this jacket will cost about a hundred and thirty dollars as I squeeze the trigger six times. Two more Schlitz drinkers hit the ground hard as the doors close behind them.
Hunh. Never really thought much about the concept of a trigger before. I wonder if The Odd Fellows could rig me one that goes off when I think about it. Nah, fuck, I’d accidentally kill a high school drop out every time Arby’s gave me the wrong topping on my baked potato.
I’ve never really understood why these rich motherfuckers need to have the private elevator to the top floor and the really long, doorless hallway to their office. Some sort of phallic thing, I imagine, forcing everybody down their shaft to ask permission to get into their head. Or maybe they see it the other way, their office is the sac, firing sperm of innovation and economy and thoughts of golf into the world. Either way, I’m getting some distressingly homoerotic feelings as I make my way to his filigreed oak doors.
I look for a doorknob and can’t find one. No lock, no handles, no sort of mechanism at all. Fuck. I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to be stopped by a door that can’t be opened. Sounds like a half-baked Zen koan: “What man can enter the door with no handle?”
This looks like a job for Ganesh.
I leisurely stroll back down the rich man’s cock to the elevator doors. Twenty-five feet, give or take. This’ll be a treat. I step back into the elevator and take my shoes. Squatting in the doorway, I make a quick prayer to my favorite Elephant God, Remover of Obstacles.
Then I knuckleball him down the hallway and let the door close in front of me. One muffled explosion later and I’m ready to go. The elevator doors open again and I see a gaping hole at the end of the hallway, little bits of fire licking at the edges.
Did I mention Ganesh removes obstacles a lot better when you fill his statues with gunpowder? Hindu hitman, govinda jaya jaya, gopala jaya jaya.
Well, okay, maybe I’m not totally Hindu, but still, my man in pink came through, didn’t he?
The hole in the hallway is pretty quiet, all things considered. But he’s in there. I can smell his cologne and hear the whir of his computer’s cooling fan. My NewLungz filter out all the smoke and powder residue from the air, leaving the hallway smelling pine-fresh. When I finally get into his office, he’s sitting there, smiling, and pointing a little metal bar at me.
The place is pretty Spartan, a few pictures of early computers line his walls. I recognize ILLIAC and the TRS-80. His desk is a fucking massive oak bastard. They must have put it in here before the room was finished, ‘cause there’s no way it would fit through the door. There’s a Mac on one end of his desk, an IBM clone on the other, and in the middle is something that computers will look like in about five years’ time.
Well. Not if I can help it.
I’m admiring the Hopi rug under my bare feet when I realize he hasn’t moved or spoken since I came in. Hasn’t even told me to drop my gun or he’ll zap me with his laser stick or what have you.
“Hey,” I say, vaguely nodding my head at him.
Shit, I’m in front of the world’s smartest, richest man and that’s the best I have?
“Hey to you, too,” he answers, maintaining his lopsided grin.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I killed you here today,”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, young man. All you’ve done so far is ruin my doors and kill a dozen men who were just doing their jobs.”
“If they were doing their jobs right, they wouldn’t be working here, they’d be out making more stupid people.”
“So they were stupid?”
“Near as I can figure, sure. I mean, how dead does your instinct for self-preservation have to be to take a job where your job is to kill for the boss or die for the boss, all signs pointing to the latter?”
“Point taken. Still, they had families, just like you and me.”
“Don’t assume you know anything about my family, Sport. All you need to know is that bullets hurt.”
“Again, young man, you’re making assumptions.”
I saw one of his fingers tense at the base of the rod and I instinctively raised the gun, ready to fire when the red dot was on him. Instead my eyesight exploded with what would normally be some rather fabulous colors, then my right eye went dead. As I sank to my knees, I pulled the trigger blindly, knowing he couldn’t possibly duck fast enough.
He was completely and utterly not hit by bullets at that time. In fact, my gun had gone all impotent on me. I felt my machismo start crying and hiding under bed. I looked up, with my good eye – if you call a squidgy thing filled with pus-like fluid and no nanomachinery the “good” eye – and saw the same crooked smile.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “It’s the future of law enforcement and military operations. Anything in front of the rod, after I press this button at the base, is affected. Only has about a fifteen foot range at this point, but this is the hand-held model.”
“What exactly have you done to me?”
“Oh, nothing terribly awful and nothing that won’t be undone as soon as I lift my finger. You see, this little device uses nanotech to disable all electronic devices and select chemical reactions – like the ignition of the gunpowder in your bullets -- within its area of effect.”
“Area of effect? Why you Dungeons and Dragons geek, you.”
“Hey, I invent new technology and live in the future like you live in the now. Of course I started as a gaming geek.”
“So, my bullets don’t work, my Eye is shut down, what’s to prevent me from leaping across your desk and strangling you with my bare hands?”
“Messrs Smith and Wesson,” he answered, raising a massive revolver from his lap.
“Yeah, I know them. Hell, I freelance with them from time to time.”
“Let’s cut to the chase, young man. Why did you come to kill me? And please tell me it’s not something so mundane as trade secrets or financial gain. Give me something to work with; you think I’m a reptoid, or I fund the New World Order. Hell, I’d even buy that my limousine ran over your dog and my chauffeur didn’t stop.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that, Sir. It’s just…well, to be honest, it’s people like you that are killing this planet and everything on it.”
His entire face dropped and the sparkle went out of his eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake, are you some sort of Greenpeace Assassin? I would’ve preferred the David Icke solution.”
I laughed, and that seemed to catch his attention again.
“No, Sir, not Greenpeace. I represent the future of the human race. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years and they couldn’t even hit each other with rocks. Humans have only had a few hundred thousand and we’re already videoconferencing through our computers with people on the other side of the planet. I’m afraid we’ve been evolving far too quickly and it’s because of men like you. So I’ve come to kill you. You know, water down the whiskey a bit.”
“You’ve officially caught my attention. That only happens about once every six months, so make the most of it.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir.”
benjamin sTone
Urbana, Illinois
7:58 p.m.
CURRENT MUSIC: “I Get Along” – Pet Shop Boys
LAST MOVIE: Watched the PRINCESS BRIDE last night with Sara’s father and his girlfriend. They’d never seen it before.
MOST RECENT BOOK I READ ANYTHING IN: WITCHCRAFT, MAGIC, & ALCHEMY, by Grillot de Givry, translated by J. Courtenay Locke, 1954
---------
My hypershort fictions and non-fiction commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
and http://benchilada.livejournal.com
---------
Flickr photostream of my bizarre photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/benchilada/
I haven’t even re-read it yet, I figure I’ll send it out before I even glance through it.
This is the roughest draft imaginable, but I suppose that’s part of the point of this exercise, isn’t it?
Moving on:
---
Sometimes it feels like cheating. Then I realize that it I didn’t cheat, there’s a chance I’d lose, and since losing means dying, they can fuck themselves. Well, they could if I weren’t fucking them first.
That’s me with the fancy gun and the fancy eye and the suit tailored for maximum killing efficiency and simultaneous impressive fashion statement. A bullet through your head while my coattails whip menacingly in the wind. Spike my hair and call me anime, young man!
The sub-government put the little machines in me, and the little machines rebuilt my eye. And the sub-government built me a gun to go with it. Now wherever I point my gun I see a little red dot exactly where the bullet will hit. I can even use the thing with parabolic arcs. Running away? A quick second of adjustment and your spine will explode as a bullet with your name smashes into it. That’s the only hard part. Scratching “Your Name” on every bullet.
Security guards are waiting when my elevator’s doors open. I’m ready, splayed across the floor of it, their bullets whizzing well overhead. Less than two seconds of sing along with the bouncing red dot and I’ve thinned out the ranks of former college football players by four. I take a few seconds and take off my shoes, leaving them in the path of the elevator door’s sensor.
I’m not worried about the security cameras. We’ve got tricks for them, too. By the time the “proper” authorities get here, all they’ll see is one of the Golden Girls doing rather nasty things to their property and their men. Well, same thing.
Better life through geriatric comedies about sex and Alzheimer’s, that’s what I’m all about right now.
I’m too busy laughing about a porn I saw the other day called The Real Golden Girls as the last two bastard-protectors nearly get a drop on me. My dramatically billowing coat makes me a bigger target than I really am, and one squeezes off a shot that tears a hole through the jacket. I try not to think about how fixing a hole in this jacket will cost about a hundred and thirty dollars as I squeeze the trigger six times. Two more Schlitz drinkers hit the ground hard as the doors close behind them.
Hunh. Never really thought much about the concept of a trigger before. I wonder if The Odd Fellows could rig me one that goes off when I think about it. Nah, fuck, I’d accidentally kill a high school drop out every time Arby’s gave me the wrong topping on my baked potato.
I’ve never really understood why these rich motherfuckers need to have the private elevator to the top floor and the really long, doorless hallway to their office. Some sort of phallic thing, I imagine, forcing everybody down their shaft to ask permission to get into their head. Or maybe they see it the other way, their office is the sac, firing sperm of innovation and economy and thoughts of golf into the world. Either way, I’m getting some distressingly homoerotic feelings as I make my way to his filigreed oak doors.
I look for a doorknob and can’t find one. No lock, no handles, no sort of mechanism at all. Fuck. I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to be stopped by a door that can’t be opened. Sounds like a half-baked Zen koan: “What man can enter the door with no handle?”
This looks like a job for Ganesh.
I leisurely stroll back down the rich man’s cock to the elevator doors. Twenty-five feet, give or take. This’ll be a treat. I step back into the elevator and take my shoes. Squatting in the doorway, I make a quick prayer to my favorite Elephant God, Remover of Obstacles.
Then I knuckleball him down the hallway and let the door close in front of me. One muffled explosion later and I’m ready to go. The elevator doors open again and I see a gaping hole at the end of the hallway, little bits of fire licking at the edges.
Did I mention Ganesh removes obstacles a lot better when you fill his statues with gunpowder? Hindu hitman, govinda jaya jaya, gopala jaya jaya.
Well, okay, maybe I’m not totally Hindu, but still, my man in pink came through, didn’t he?
The hole in the hallway is pretty quiet, all things considered. But he’s in there. I can smell his cologne and hear the whir of his computer’s cooling fan. My NewLungz filter out all the smoke and powder residue from the air, leaving the hallway smelling pine-fresh. When I finally get into his office, he’s sitting there, smiling, and pointing a little metal bar at me.
The place is pretty Spartan, a few pictures of early computers line his walls. I recognize ILLIAC and the TRS-80. His desk is a fucking massive oak bastard. They must have put it in here before the room was finished, ‘cause there’s no way it would fit through the door. There’s a Mac on one end of his desk, an IBM clone on the other, and in the middle is something that computers will look like in about five years’ time.
Well. Not if I can help it.
I’m admiring the Hopi rug under my bare feet when I realize he hasn’t moved or spoken since I came in. Hasn’t even told me to drop my gun or he’ll zap me with his laser stick or what have you.
“Hey,” I say, vaguely nodding my head at him.
Shit, I’m in front of the world’s smartest, richest man and that’s the best I have?
“Hey to you, too,” he answers, maintaining his lopsided grin.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I killed you here today,”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, young man. All you’ve done so far is ruin my doors and kill a dozen men who were just doing their jobs.”
“If they were doing their jobs right, they wouldn’t be working here, they’d be out making more stupid people.”
“So they were stupid?”
“Near as I can figure, sure. I mean, how dead does your instinct for self-preservation have to be to take a job where your job is to kill for the boss or die for the boss, all signs pointing to the latter?”
“Point taken. Still, they had families, just like you and me.”
“Don’t assume you know anything about my family, Sport. All you need to know is that bullets hurt.”
“Again, young man, you’re making assumptions.”
I saw one of his fingers tense at the base of the rod and I instinctively raised the gun, ready to fire when the red dot was on him. Instead my eyesight exploded with what would normally be some rather fabulous colors, then my right eye went dead. As I sank to my knees, I pulled the trigger blindly, knowing he couldn’t possibly duck fast enough.
He was completely and utterly not hit by bullets at that time. In fact, my gun had gone all impotent on me. I felt my machismo start crying and hiding under bed. I looked up, with my good eye – if you call a squidgy thing filled with pus-like fluid and no nanomachinery the “good” eye – and saw the same crooked smile.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “It’s the future of law enforcement and military operations. Anything in front of the rod, after I press this button at the base, is affected. Only has about a fifteen foot range at this point, but this is the hand-held model.”
“What exactly have you done to me?”
“Oh, nothing terribly awful and nothing that won’t be undone as soon as I lift my finger. You see, this little device uses nanotech to disable all electronic devices and select chemical reactions – like the ignition of the gunpowder in your bullets -- within its area of effect.”
“Area of effect? Why you Dungeons and Dragons geek, you.”
“Hey, I invent new technology and live in the future like you live in the now. Of course I started as a gaming geek.”
“So, my bullets don’t work, my Eye is shut down, what’s to prevent me from leaping across your desk and strangling you with my bare hands?”
“Messrs Smith and Wesson,” he answered, raising a massive revolver from his lap.
“Yeah, I know them. Hell, I freelance with them from time to time.”
“Let’s cut to the chase, young man. Why did you come to kill me? And please tell me it’s not something so mundane as trade secrets or financial gain. Give me something to work with; you think I’m a reptoid, or I fund the New World Order. Hell, I’d even buy that my limousine ran over your dog and my chauffeur didn’t stop.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that, Sir. It’s just…well, to be honest, it’s people like you that are killing this planet and everything on it.”
His entire face dropped and the sparkle went out of his eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake, are you some sort of Greenpeace Assassin? I would’ve preferred the David Icke solution.”
I laughed, and that seemed to catch his attention again.
“No, Sir, not Greenpeace. I represent the future of the human race. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years and they couldn’t even hit each other with rocks. Humans have only had a few hundred thousand and we’re already videoconferencing through our computers with people on the other side of the planet. I’m afraid we’ve been evolving far too quickly and it’s because of men like you. So I’ve come to kill you. You know, water down the whiskey a bit.”
“You’ve officially caught my attention. That only happens about once every six months, so make the most of it.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir.”
benjamin sTone
Urbana, Illinois
7:58 p.m.
CURRENT MUSIC: “I Get Along” – Pet Shop Boys
LAST MOVIE: Watched the PRINCESS BRIDE last night with Sara’s father and his girlfriend. They’d never seen it before.
MOST RECENT BOOK I READ ANYTHING IN: WITCHCRAFT, MAGIC, & ALCHEMY, by Grillot de Givry, translated by J. Courtenay Locke, 1954
---------
My hypershort fictions and non-fiction commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
and http://benchilada.livejournal.com
---------
Flickr photostream of my bizarre photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/benchilada/
