Chapter 10 of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

Because it's just another Mayhem Monday:

The android’s colourless eyes blinked open. It starred up at the ceiling. Frowned at the erotic constellations. “Pornography,” whispered Eight-Oh-Nine. “NC-17 level rating.”

Dr. Helen’s face leaned into his field of vision. “How do you feel?”

The android paused for a moment, studying her facial features, body language. Furrowed brow indicating concern. Relaxed jaw. No hostile intent evident. He ran a quick internal diagnostic. Gigahertz powered computers the size of bacterium began processing information at an incredible rate. “Incapacitated. Extensive cellular level damage,” he said. “Unidentified viral infection.”

Helen nodded. “Your immune system is preventing my probes from helping you. Can you shut them down?”

The android looked at the gently drifting constellations for a moment. The graceful female shapes were pleasing. “No,” he responded. “Where am I?”

“Safe. He’s ready,” said Doc Helen.

The council stirred at their elevated podiums. “About damn time,” growled Buchanan testily, rubbing a bulbous wart on his fat nose and leaning forward.

“Android Eight-Oh-Nine,” rumbled Kendee, “You are now in Pleasurepit Emporium Five, the last surviving bastion of human civilization on this burnt earth. We rescued you. My name is Kendee.”

Eight-Oh-Nine blinked again. He remembered being sucked up by the mollusk. It seemed like eons ago. Yet here he was. With humans. It was not too late. “You are in great danger,” he mumbled.

“How’s that?” asked Kendee. “From what?”

“WOTEC,” said the android. “The Engines of Creation. The Great Darkness that rises out of the east, the shadow that engulfs the pearl.”

Buchanan frowned and looked at his peers. “Unusually poetic for an android. He malfunctioning?”

“The Dark Lord of the Engines will consume us all in a nightmare paradigm,” said Eight- Oh-Nine impassively, simulated emotions under control at last. His amplified words echoed through the chamber, adding to their weight.

“Identify WOTEC,” Kendee said, leaning back.

A holographic projection of a ringed sphere appeared above the android, resembling Saturn, topped by a planet spanning castle. In an arc around it were the words ‘The Worlds of Tomorrow Entertainment Complex.’

“WOTEC,” said a disembodied, mellifluous female voice. “Constructed in the Google Corporate Republic in 2325 AD, outside of San Jose. It was a one hundred thousand acre anamorphic entertainment complex divided into eighty themed zones. Attendance: one hundred-eighty-seven million annually. Operated by Incorporated Delight, a subsidiary of Global Hollywood. It delivered immersive leisure and entertainment experiences using a combination of emotionally responsive nanotech entities, programmable terrain, psychotropic drugs, and organdroids. The last expansion, Wicked Wishes Fantasy World, was added in 2440. Shut down by the Knudson & Romy Decency Act of 2443. Fell into decline with the development of Transferable Memory Dreams in 2449.”

Buchanan snorted. “So we’re in mortal danger from... an amusement park?”

“Correct,” said the android.

Selibe covered her face. “Oh God. The prophecy was true.”

Kendee nodded sagely. “Amusement parks always turn against their creators. Just as the ancients foresaw. They be the end of us all. Anything post-collapse, Jen?”

The disembodied female voice paused, then replied: “WOTEC went dark. Attempts by local authorities to investigate and save patrons were repulsed. External developments, including multiple nuclear detonations, followed by economic and social collapse, put the investigation on indefinite hold.”

The android blinked agreement, unable to move his head within the claustrophobic grip of the humming medical cocoon. “It has evolved. Grown.”

“What does it want?”

“The Engines seek to reprogram the world on a molecular level,” said Eight-Oh-Nine. “Reason unknown.”

Selibe shivered.

Buchanan was having none of it. “California seceded ages ago. It’s their problem.”

The android nearly choked. “Defunct jurisdictions will not protect you. It is currently expanding at a rate of several kilometers per day. As of last week, it covered 37,970 square kilometers. At its current rate of expansion, it will reach this location in nine months, three days, seven hours, twenty minutes, and thirteen seconds,” Eight-Oh-Nine lied. A small and necessary distortion of the truth: civilians needed motivation. “This installation will be consumed. Digested. Replaced. CENTCOM has already been destroyed. But we were developing countermeasures. I escaped with them.”

Buchanan paused. His goiter throbbed painfully. “This is some serious shit. You hear all that, Senator?”

“Yes,” responded the soft, rich voice of Lacus. “I did. So: it’s a dead amusement park against our living will.”

“I have more to tell you,” said Eight-Oh-Nine. And he began to talk.

****

“Still nothing, Kal. You know what you’re doing?”

“Course I do, don’t I always? Hold on,” replied Kal and tossed Thrax a new set of fatigues from a storage locker. “Put these on.”

Thrax did so and examined the new set up. Kal had placed the dodecahedron atop an antigrav field generator and surrounded it with a projected force field, no cables, then ran a probe unit through.

Kal gestured at the junk. “Don’t want it to wake anything else up. Or it, if there’s an it to wake up. No telling how devastating that could be. Gigaton bomb in a bird’s egg. Could’ve been sending nanite moles into our systems from the moment it arrived. No. Wait. Scratch that. That’s just paranoid,” He slapped his face twice. “Calm down! Be everywhere now, monitoring us, evaluating, co-opting our systems. Cut off the air supply, use our own defenses against us. Yeah. No. Hasn’t happened.” The worried look vanished, and he grinned from ear to ear at Thrax. “Exciting, though, isn’t it?” he enthused, like a five year old on Christmas morning. “I feel alive!”

“Good for you,” groused Thrax. “We almost weren’t. Let’s get rid of it. Or look at it outside The Pit.”

“If we could just get an idea of its recent history, if it has any active mission. Hell, it may even have a personality!” That really seemed to excite Kal.

Thrax didn’t care. “I’m not looking for a new friend. Maybe ol’ Queen Victoria could help,” Thrax suggested, not unreasonably.

“Our tempermental, sensibly senile technowitch?” Kal peered at the upper right corner of his information feed. “What is she up to...” He scanned, grunted. “She’s finished repairing the exterior damage, now is breaking down that squid. Magnificent creature! That’ll take a bit. Overflow our chemical vats. She’s adding surface storage containers to hold the excess. Such a rigid, by the numbers type thinker.” He frowned. “No, no. Not what we need. We need out of the box. Out, out!”

Thrax pinged Darwin.

Darwin answered immediately: “Thrax, that android has a nasty virus in him that’s turning him into andro-goo.”

“Infectious?” “Unknown. Possibly.”

Thrax rolled his eyes at the Heavens. Sometimes the bright could be so obtuse. He went blunt. “Do I have it? Will I be gooified?”

“Unknown. That isn’t a real word.”

Thrax swore and paced about, his equilibrium disturbed.

A happy ding. The sound grated his ears. Thrax looked at the source: Kal’s screen. A flood of data streamed across a red pop-up panel.

Kal grunted. “Well, well, well. It’s trying to send a transmission, the little devil.” “What is? The dodecahedron?” asked Thrax.

“No. The virus, actually. In the android!” He tapped some keys with a blur of fingers. “Yes indeedy-do: synvirus. We’re too far underground. Doesn’t have the power. Imagine the infection is designed to kill and tag prey for later retrieval. That’s what I’d do.”

Thrax looked at Kal. “Anything on this virus? Will it... you know.” He put a hand on Kal’s shoulder. “You’d tell me if it did, right?”

“Course! We’re buds. And naw. Not the same at all. Android’s synvirus has entirely dissimiliar source code. Yeah, I already scanned your med records and hacked into the android’s data. Happily your synvirus seems to need you alive.”

Thrax sighed with relief. “You sure?”

“Call it an educated guess,” Kal grinned happily. “Let me spell it out for you, set your mind at ease.” He shifted and took on a professorial air.

“Go on. Again.”

“Okay. So. First, this android dude flees bad guys that want the dodecahedron. Best guess, here. Android dude gets away, but they wound him and infect him with a killer virus in the process. So he’s lying injured or something, when, vwoop, he’s vaccumed up by this oblivious gigantic snail squid who’s migrating along, minding its own business. It winds up here, where you kill the poor thing, a miracle of nature and one of the most impressive mollusks to have ever existed.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.”

“Poor Mr. Mollusk. Anyway. Mr. Android knows the jig is up. He’s down for the count, an android barely alive. So when you find him, our dying friend infects you, Mr. Shoot First, with another synvirus, a very special synthetic virus, to carry on his mission.’

Thrax leaned in. Finally he knew what was going on. Almost. “Which is?”

Kal spread his palms in the air and made a face. “How the hell should I know? I’m guessing. It’s a mystery!” he said with a grin. “Isn’t that great? Oh. Mind if I tag along? Bouncers coming for you.”

“Huh?”

The door buzzer sounded.

GZZZT! GZZZT!

“Sorry. Should have mentioned,” added Kal. “My bad.”

****

Thrax and Kal stood in a pool of light on the central stage of the cavernous council chamber. Ghatz stood off to the side, molecular disrupter hidden in his pocket. His hate filled eyes never left Thrax.

“Citizen, you have been infected with a synvirus,” intoned Kendee solemnly from above.

“No shit,” replied Thrax, looking over at the Eight-Oh-Nine in his cocoon. He already knew that, and much more. Stupid councilors.

“We need your help,” said Selibe with a sigh. “The colony is in danger, Magnum Thrax. A malevolent force, a macro-nanite entity of almost limitless power, is heading towards us. It will consume our home, and eventually the entire world, if not stopped.”

Councilor Grant grunted and added, “The synthetic virus you have been infected with could destroy this threat.”

Sweet! Thrax grinned. This all made Thrax mucho importanto. They wouldn’t dare execute his family now. In fact, he could call them a bunch of exploitive, snot faced simpering twats and they’d just have to suck it. Thrax grinned and blew a kiss at Ghatz, who fumed silently, ground his teeth and tightened his grip on the disruptor until his fingers turned white.

“Tell me more, biatches,” said Thrax.

Kendee frowned but held his tongue. The others squirmed uncomfortably.

“The virus was developed by the military,” said Grant, giving the cocooned android an annoyed look. 

“They could have helped us earlier, reached out, but what’s done is done. Bunch of dicks. Anyway. The virus must be physically delivered into the sentient core of the Engine, an entity known as The Dark Lord, The Necromancer. A rather pedestrian alias, if you ask me.” 

Thrax frowned and shifted on his feet. “Now hold on. When you say ‘physically’, what kind of physical do you... I mean, I don’t have to...it’s not... y’know.”

“No, no, no,” said Grant, “just contact with The Dark Lord will do. A tap. A scratch. Nothing more.”

“Whew. Alright then. Continue.”

Buchanan wagged a finger at Thrax. “You must destroy this evil being, young man.” With a gesture Buchanan brought up a hologram of North America. A path stretched from their current location to San Jose. “You will have to go there, to the source. Penetrate through hundreds of kilometers of enemy controlled territory. It will not be easy.”

“Uh, if I may?” interjected Kal. “That’s sounding rather like Mission Impossible. A real so-long-sucker Kamikaze mission. Certain deathsville topped with a dollop of total futility.”

“On your own, perhaps,” replied Buchanan. “But we have potential allies. In Nike Monastery.”

Thrax went cold. “The witches,” he mumbled, afraid to say the word any louder. Everyone had heard of Nike Monastery. He remembered tales from when he was a small child, warning him that if he didn’t behave, the technowitches would come and turn him into a meatloaf. They had powerful, dark magic. Ate souls. Children. Enslaved anyone who came within a hundred miles. Made everything colour coordinated. He’d thought it was just a legend to scare kids with. If they were real, he didn’t want to meet them. “What makes you think they’ll help us?”

“The enemy of our enemy is our friend,” said Kendee.

Buchanan leaned forward. “Ordinarily, I’d share your skepticism. But our android friend says The Dark Lord intends to destroy the monastery. It’s a threat. A rival. In particular, he has targeted a young woman there. A prodigy. So we have common cause. Behold.”

A hologram of a strikingly beautiful young woman with delicate bone structure and slight build flickered into view. She seemed to stare straight into Thrax. He’d never seen a female like her; not the overblown and exaggerated, voluptuous android ideal of beauty, nor the deformed and radiation damaged humanity he was used to. This was something different.

Something more.

Fresh.

Pure.

He was instantly smitten.

“She is known as Mindy. With her help, and the synvirus you carry, we may have a chance. Save her, save the world.”

“Nice,” said Thrax, with a big grin. No mention of his dodecahedron. Good. He wouldn’t spill that little info nugget if the android didn’t. It’d be his ace in the hole. All he needed was some way to use it. Kal would figure that out. He spread out his arms, symbolically embracing the councilors. “Looks like I’m Mr. Important today. How about that, eh?” He shot a look at Ghatz, who glared hate back.

“Unfortunately, yes,” conceded Kendee grudgingly. “So. Will you take up this quest, Magnum Thrax? On behalf of the people?”

“Lemme think,” replied Thrax, putting hand to chin. Time to deliver the bitch-slap: “Done. Here’s the deal: you wipe all charges against my family away, give us new digs in the Humres quarters, exec rights, our own personal android servants, immunity from Guardian prosecution, and yeah, I’ll go save your collective asses.” He jerked a thumb at Ghatz. “Even this twerp’s.”

The councilors looked at each other. Nodded. They obviously hadn’t expected to get off so easily. Damn, thought Thrax. He should have demanded more. What a rube he was!

“Agreed.”

Ghatz nearly went apoplectic. He gibbered, shook, fumed, but couldn’t muster words. That, in itself, was worth something to Thrax.

Selibe pointed, with a wavering finger, at the android. Her face an expression of pure horror. “Look!” Selibe blurted.

Thrax turned and gasped. The synthetic man had broken free from the cocoon; he batted Doctor Helen away, sending her soaring through the air into a balcony unit. The android’s skin was sloughing off, melting from his bones, liquefying, yet for the moment he still possessed superhuman strength. He lurched for Thrax. Intestines unraveled and dropped out of his abdominal cavity with a wet, sloppy smack. Stumbling, trailing guts, soulless grey eyes locked on Thrax’s, the android seized his arm, then placed a disintegrating palm, tendons exposed and gleaming wet, on Thrax’s forehead.

Steam poured out from the point of contact.

Thrax convulsed violently like a man made of Jello.

The pair collapsed into a fluid drenched heap of blood and synthetic goop.

Classic Doctor Who: What to Watch Part III

Whoops.

I had the whole thing written and done, everything was in, witticisms and all, but then I hit undo a few too many times, trying to fix a text caption, and Blogger ate it.

It ate it all.

So what should you watch, then? Here is the down and dirty way: write the titles of the remaining stories on sticky notes, put them on a wall, and throw darts.

Watch the ones you hit.

Enjoy!

Whiplash: A full throated defense of physical and emotional abuse

"Are we having f*cking fun yet you simpering, whiny little b*tch?!?"

The film is about achieving greatness, and uses two characters to tell the tale: Andrew (Miles Teller) and Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons).

Andrew's a young drummer who dreams of being the next Charlie Parker, so he joins Fletcher’s elite jazz band class at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York City.

Fletcher's tyrannical and emotionally abusive, but also a gifted perfectionist, He runs his class like a demented, obsessive compulsive drill sergeant with a Masters Degree, but it is to a purpose: Fletcher's monomania pushes Andrew past his limits to greatness.

It’s an agenda driven film with a strong point of view.

Our dear, driven Andrew wants to be all that he can be, musically, so he willingly lets Fletcher subject him to pure hell. Andrew even chucks his directionless girl friend overboard so he can dedicate more time to music.

Because music über alles!

There are suicide bombers with less zeal.

Shaffer is an elite school. The best in the country, or so we're told by Andrew. And Fletcher's class is the best of what Shaffer has to offer. Students are ‘free’ to quit and walk away at any time. And yet, they’ve invested copious amounts of money to attend, and it is the path to prestige employment, the realization of their dreams, so… not so simple.

Obviously there is a need to push people to the extreme at elite institutions. It builds toughness and weeds out the weak, which serves a purpose, especially in the military. They strip people down and then rebuild them as part of an integrated team, not only so they can carry out their orders, but better survive them.

But once you accept the filmmaker’s message, where does it lead?

Many of us now work in a global marketplace. People living in areas with a high cost of living must compete with people living in areas with much lower overhead.

So jobs get outsourced overseas.

Because capitalism is competition.

It’s like nature: the best win, the losers become extinct. So to survive, companies must push employees. Hard. That's the mantra of Tiger Moms and drill sergeants. It’s also the message of Terence Fletcher, or more to the point, writer and director Damien Chazelle.

If you don't want your job to go abroad, you'd better be great.

How do we achieve greatness?

Why, Chazelle just gave us the answer: tough love, aka emotional and physical abuse.

Fletcher (the writer / director's mouthpiece) lays it out for us in a monologue:

"Parker's a young kid, pretty good on the sax. Gets up to play at a cutting session, and he fucks it up. And Jones nearly decapitates him for it. And he's laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night, but the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And he practices and he practices with one goal in mind, never to be laughed at again. And a year later, he goes back to the Reno and he steps up on that stage, and plays the best motherfucking solo the world has ever heard. So imagine if Jones had just said: "Well, that's okay, Charlie. That was all right. Good job. "And then Charlie thinks to himself, "Well, shit, I did do a pretty good job." End of story. No Bird. That, to me, is an absolute tragedy. But that's just what the world wants now. People wonder why jazz is dying."

It's good, if blunt, dialogue. The film is full of it.

Whiplash is a full throated roar to bring Basic Training to every workplace. Why? Because if we don’t, we’ll fall behind. We’ll be out competed. Only the hardest will survive.

To the films credit, the cost of this approach is not skipped over: students break down, they cry, and one even commits suicide. As a result, the worrywart administration and the coddler brigade intervene.

The teacher, Fletcher, is sanctioned and driven out.

A safe environment is restored.

Yay.

Butterflies out of bums.

But in the last few seconds of the film, this narrative is inverted with a snap so hard it will give you… well, you know: whiplash.

It's all in a look exchanged between teacher and student, one which signifies realization: Andrew has emerged through the crucible, fully realized, and has now achieved true greatness. Fletcher, the erstwhile villain, is vindicated. The worrywarts and school administration are revealed as simpering weaklings standing in the way of achievement, the very thing an educational institution should be promoting. Instead, they're holding people back from achieving their full potential.

And don't we all want to fulfill our potential?

From a film making point of view, it's brilliant. It breaks the 'Save the Cat' structure that has become so ubiquitous. The entire movie builds to a nonverbal exchange that occurs in the last thirty seconds.

So the film presents us with a choice: you can either have greatness through 'emotional and physical abuse', or you can give up on greatness in order to avoid the harshness of 'tough love'.

"Just relax and enjoy, you worthless, limp-dicked, pansy-assed piece of shit!!!"

The two opposing views have built-in defense mechanisms, starting with slanders: you’re either an abusive tyrant (and I imagine a few other appellations, probably the catch-all 'Fascist') or a simpering weakling, a 'worthless, friendless, faggot-lipped little piece of shit whose mommy left daddy when she figured out he wasn't Eugene O'Neill, and who is now weeping and slobbering all over my drum set like a fucking nine-year old girl!’

As Mr. Fletcher might say.

In fact, he does say that.

Such a charmer.

I'd pay money to see this guy teaching nine-year olds while screaming that they cry like five-year olds. Maybe in the sequel: Terence Fletcher Goes Grade School, Eight Dead, Film at Six.

Get them while they're young, right? In fact, excellence starts in Kindergarten. Fletcher's next monologue practically writes itself...

The real kicker? 

The omission: there is not a single woman in the class.

Fletcher does invite the five-year old daughter of a former student to join his band, though.

Boy, does she have something to look forward to.

Chapter 9 of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

Happy Magnum Mayhem Monday! Here comes an extra big serving of Magnum Thrax, thanks to our sponsors: caffeine, carbohydrates, and cigarettes. Remember, I eat unhealthy so you don't have to.

The laboratory was a vast domed room, strewn with machinery in various states of disassembly, vehicle parts mixed with computers, reploboxes, scanners, generators, and the rusted, partial frame of a robot colossus. Thrax’s buddy Kal Ecto Grammer stood in a small oasis at the centre of the clutter, bent over an atomic analyzer.

Thrax weaved his way through canyons of teetering junk to reach him.

“You have to do something about all this crap,” said Thrax, gesturing at the teetering piles.

“Kal exhibits all the signs of a hoarder,” observed Darwin. “A mental dysfunction of obsessive compulsive personality types. Somehow it remains in the gene pool.”

Kal took off a pair of bulky goggles that were attached to the analyzer by wires.

Thrax looked at him. Kal had narrow features, a beak like nose, and a wild shock of red hair. His eyes bulged in their sockets. Freckles speckled his face like a red Milky Way. He was a genius, and Thrax knew he also had a dozen quantum processing units implanted under the skin of his neck, allowing his mind to hold a thousand times as much information as the one hundred terabytes of an ordinary human mind. A fan of ancient attire, Kal wore an oil stained white shirt, waistcoat, and black slacks.

He was such a nerd, thought Thrax.

“I may need this stuff,” Kal finally replied, irked. “Soon as you throw it out, you need it. Murphy’s Law.”

Thrax settled on a stool across from Kal, who pointed at a black sphere resting on top of an old operating table. The sphere gave no reflection. Light drowned in it.

Kal tapped it with a mag-screwdriver. “You see that? What do you think it is? Aht! Don’t ask Darwin!”

“A big black basket ball?”

Kal snorted. “Shows how much you know, monkey man. That, my friend, is a top of the line Dynamic Matter Corporation Anamorphic Multi-Function Battlefield Superiority Robot.” Kal caressed it with affection. “A nanite shell with three hundred different configurations, guided by a diffuse quantum AI, onboard nanofactory that can produce its own ammunition, or drones. Deployable electromagnetic rail gun or five hundred gigawatt lasers.” He whistled. “Thing of beauty.”

“Huh. Hurts my eyes. Does it work?”

Kal sighed and gave it a smack. “Of course not, stupid. Totally inert.” He skipped back to his analyzer and perched on the padded seat. “Three hundred and twenty-seven hours and thirty-two minutes.”

“Sorry?” Thrax wasn’t getting it.

Kal grew cross and gestured at the sphere. “Hours! Try to keep up. That’s how long I’ve spent trying to reactivate it. Thrax my friend, with this puppy we could take over the continent. The world! If we just had the right command nanites. But we don’t. So it just sits here, taunting me!” He leapt to his feet. “God it’s so frustrating, you have no idea! Confounded at every turn.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “Tried forging, reverse engineering, hacking, rebooting, everything. Even then we don’t have activation codes or passwords.” He slumped down on the stool again and looked at Thrax wearily. “No rest for the wicked, pal.”

Thrax shrugged, playing dumb. “So it is useless. Throw it out.”

Kal started to go apoplectic, then stopped as if a switch had been thrown. “What do you want, Thrax? I’m very busy with the universe and stuff.”

Thrax smiled inwardly and slipped the dodecahedron out of his pocket. Tossed it in the air, casually, like a coin or marble.

Kal’s eyes narrowed with mild interest. Then opened wide. “Benefactor balls,” he hissed, and snatched the dodecahedron out of the air. He placed his nose an inch away from the tiny device. Grabbed an analyzer and set it against his eye. Gaped. “Can’t be. Yet... the level of precision is incredible. A thousand times the best machine accuracy.”

Bingo! Anything tech was catnip for Kal. Thrax’s heart leapt. Perhaps it was something valuable. Valuable enough to save his family. Maybe even something that worked. “It is important, isn’t it?”

Kal looked him in the eye for a moment, like Thrax had just said the most insane thing possible. The look turned to one of pity for an intellectual ant. Thrax could feel the disdain. Kal stood up and raced over to a pile of junk, throwing bits of machinery aside as he dug.

“I don’t like the look he gave us,” commented Darwin. “I’ve tried sending in probes through your finger tips into the object. It destroyed them on contact. Searching through databases. Still no match.”

“What?” said Thrax aloud. “What is it, anyway? A smaller version of your sphere, only with corners?”

“Sit still!” shouted Kal over his shoulder. “Don’t move a muscle. Don’t even think. And turn Darwin off.”

“Aw, hey, he’s not gonna...”

“NOW! Do it!” There was an edge in Kal’s voice. Even panic. It sent a chill down Thrax’s spine.

“Of all the nerve,” muttered Darwin. “He’s locking me out of the mainframe.”

The lights dimmed. Massive blast doors began to grind shut over the exits. Air vents slammed shut, drains clacked closed. A sphere of energy engulfed the black battle sphere. The room was doused in red light. Thrax tripped the neural trigger and shut Darwin off. Again. “Okay, okay. Done. You’re freaking me out.”

Kal raced back, holding a short tube. There was an impression at one end.

“You should be. God in a droplet of metal. ‘One ring to rule them all.’ G.R.R. Martin. Where did you find it?”

Thrax shrugged. “Android gave it to me.” “Android? What android?”
“There was a...”

“Yes, yes,” Kal waved his hands and shut his eyes. “Got it. Downloaded the recordings. Nice shot, by the way. Fascinating. They’re waking the android up now. Eight-Oh-Nine. Hmm. I want to take alook at his cortex. Nope, blocked.” Kal opened his eyes. “You showed this to anyone? I didn’t see it in the feed.”

“Pocketed it before I got out of the snail squid’s guts. Only you know.” said Thrax, rubbing the dodecahedron between his thumb and forefinger.

“Easy now,” said Kal. He placed the tube atop it; the impression fit the dodecahedron perfectly. “Fits. One point, Kal. Put it down on this.” He bent down and knocked a bunch of junk off a small containment field platform, a low cylinder about a foot high.

Thrax gently did so, and they both kneeled over it conspiratorially. “What does it do?” Thrax whispered, as that seemed the right thing to do.

There was a crash behind them, followed by a loud, thrumming hum. They both slowly looked behind them as a domed, cylindrical robot with a tapered bottom rose up out of a pile of junk, its old antigrav pods emitting a high pitched, strained whine. Cables and wiring cascaded off and fell into a jumble below. Six photon receptors clustered set in the oil streaked dome flicked open, lit, and focused on the dodecahedron. Steam jetted out of heat sinks on its flanks. Beneath, the air shimmered and wobbled.

“Friend of yours?” asked Thrax.

“I’d hoped. My pet cryobot,” said Kal a hushed voice. “Not so dead after all...” “Does anything you have work?”

Six circles on the surface of the bot unsealed, three per side, and ribbed tentacles whizzed out, tipped by black pods packed with gleaming manipulators. The tools deployed and clacked and buzzed and sparked while the arms undulated in the air before the two humans.

Thrax stood up. “Uh, Kal? Do I kill it?” Robotic eyes buzzed and focused on Thrax.

“Of course not,” hissed Kal, alarmed. “Don’t let it hear you. I’ve been hoping its repair cycles would turn over. Do you have any idea how valuable an antique like this is? Some crazy sorcerors would pay primo for this. Even before the collapse they were rare. Obsolete, really.” He bent down and edged towards it, peering at a circular window recessed in the sculpted belly, coated by a film of semi-opaque ice. There was a hint of a face behind it. “Hey, baby. How you feeling, huh?” He grinned back at Thrax and rubbed his hands together in glee. “This is awesome. Systems seem back on line. Maybe a little disoriented.” He waved at the little window. “Hey in there. Welcome back, Colonel...” He peered at the name engraved beneath the window, “...Stephen Houston!”

Thrax was unimpressed. He had no interest in some long dead head-in-a-bot. Thing could prove dangerous. Might way a ton, maybe two. No obvious weapons, but those arms looked nasty, and the sheer weight of the thing alone... He looked about nervously. “Kal, buddy, you got any weapons here?”

“Eh? Sure, all over the place. But none of them work. Be quiet! You’ll spook our friend,” Kal tutted. “These machines were used to preserve terminally ill humans, like a cryotube, only ambulatory, independent, run by an uploaded version of the patient’s personality. Cryostasis for paranoid types.” He turned back to the cryoborg. “No offense intended.”

The cryobot’s vocoder belted out a series of gruff, unintelligible sounds. Aggressive sounding. It began to edge forward. Junk beneath its antigrav field jittered, spun and spat outward.

“You know, I’m not sure the Colonel is entirely with it.”

“I’m thinking the Colonel’s hostile. He’ll take over The Pit. Let me blow it up.”

“Wait. Just... wait, okay? ‘Blow it up.’ That’s your answer for everything.” Kal tapped his forehead with an open palm. “Must have been reactivated by...” Kal paused in midsentence. He looked back at the dodecahedron, then at Thrax. “That’s not good.” He lunged and hit a stud on the containment field cylinder.

A force field sparkled to life, shimmering around the dodecahedron.

The cryobot reacted immediately: it bellowed a stream of guttural synthetic machine expletives and plowed forward like a self-propelled brick. A tentacle spun out, snagged Kal by the scruff of his neck and flung him into a junk pile. He toppled off and fell down into a rusted tub. He grabbed the rim, tried to haul himself up, only destabilized the pile in the process. It collapsed with a roar; he spilled out and was carried helplessly away on the junk avalanche, spinning over metal grates.

The cryobot stopped before the dodecahedron. Tentacles slashed repeatedly against the energy field to no avail. Thrax approached, then suddenly feinted forward, drawing limbs towards him. “Come on, corspicle head!” He chucked a wrench at it, and glanced off the dome harmlessly. The cryobot turned and jabbed with its metal tentacles. Thrax anticipated, and dodged easily, then ran down a junk tunnel, scanning for useful items. Lasers. Blasters. Kinetic energy weapons. Rocks. His heart leapt when he spotted the grip of a maser canon. It was jammed under a washing machine. With all his strength he pulled at it, freeing it. His triumphant grin faded when he noticed the front firing nozzle was gone. He dropped it with disgust, grabbed a crowbar, and prepared to face his enemy. “This wouldn’t be happening if you threw out your damn junk, Kal! Just saying!”

On a pillar of shimmering steam, the cryo-cyborg or cryobot or whatever it was closed in.

“Emergency. Command nodule,” its vocoder blared. “Release. Priority. Release nodule. Comply. Alternative: termination. Acknowledge.” The machine blocked the tunnel, all six arms deployed before it, each manipulator pod whirring with deadly diamond saws. “Addendum: medical assistance required.”

Thrax scanned the junk tunnel walls and noted two key points as tentacles launched forward, testing his reflexes. It moved forward, closer. Thrax struck with his crowbar, not against the cryobot but the junk, knocking out lynchpoints on the left and right tunnel wall. The piles collapsed inward in front of him, burying the bot. It blared alarm. Steam poured out from the jumbled mass as he clambered up and over it. “Take five, buddy,” he said, patting the junk mountain. Hot wet air seeped through it and drenched his clothes and hair. “Kal! I took care of the stiff.”

“Here!” Kal was crouched by his workbench, trying to speed reassemble an antimatter pistol. “Keep it distracted!” His hands trembled as he put the primer into the suspension clasp. “Knew something like this would happen,” he muttered angrily. “Stupid! The other way around. Should have seen it, so should have... Course they all would!” The primer slipped and fell to the floor. “Shit!”

Thrax tried to reply, but a clatter behind him drowned out his voice. The cyber-thing wasn’t beaten after all. Thrax’s combat sixth sense buzzed; he flung himself into the air. Three tentacles struck where he’d been standing, plowing through the floor plates. Coolant jetted upward from a ruptured pipe. Buzz saws screamed and cut metal. Foam spilled out of the hole and dried in place. Thrax landed awkwardly, hurting his ankle. But the foam gave Thrax an idea. He ran to the edge of the central clearing where Kal stacked his emergency safety tools. Fire extinguishers, dampners, the works.

The cyborg’s vocoder squawked again. “Life support system malfunction. Urgent. Activate insurance policy. Do not interfere. Imperative.” It rotated in place, turning back to the dodecahedron. “Surrender. Obey. Martial law: invoked.”

Thrax grabbed a spray sealant canister.

The cyber-whatever returned and hovered beside the shielded dodecahedron. It tossed away a cut out section of floor plating and pushed a tentacle pod tip inside. Buzz saws severed the power lines. The containment field faltered and winked out. Manipulators spilled out of a tentacle pod and snatched it up. Another tentacle edged toward it, unfolding an infoport.

“This is bad! If it accesses that, we’re all dead!” shouted Kal. His fingers trembled. He couldn’t finish the reassembly! If he didn’t...

The infoport connected. Strange, mechanical sounds came from every corner of the lab. Machinery that had been inert for centuries slowly began to throb back to life. Lights flickered on. Engines whined. Weapons primed themselves.

“We’re too late! It’s going to have the ultimate robo-trash army,” breathed Kal, horrified. He slumped. “We’re totally dead.” He looked about for his flask for a last drink.

“Never say die,” replied Thrax fiercely, and he catapulted forward, clutching the canister. He dove between the cyborg’s slashing tentacles and pressed himself against its hull, then shoved the spray nozzle into its heat sink and closed the contact. A great gush of foam filled the hot slats. Excess flabs of goop poured out. Thrax pushed around the rim, ducking tentacle blows, sliding the nozzle erratically up and down. The cryocyborg’s heat alarm sounded. Four-fifths along the canister sputtered and died. “Kal!” shouted Thrax, frustrated. He threw it down and rushed for the rack. “Dammit, Kal, these are supposed to be kept full!” 

Buzz saws arrayed themselves around Thrax, hemming him in.
The black sphere on the table top trembled. Its surface began to bubble.

“It’s preoccupied,” said Kal softly. “Maybe...” He finished the reassembly and snapped the breach closed. Took aim. “Hey!” he called. “Colonel Houston!”

Robots and war machines loomed up behind Kal menacingly as the cryborg spun around. Within its central cryochamber, the face of a hideous, dessicated human could now be seen, wreathed in ice crystals, eye sockets empty and hollow, lips peeled back in a rictor grin. “Colonel Houston currently indisposed. Leave message.”

Kal fired.

The shot blew the cryochamber apart, igniting the processing unit attached above, causing catastrophic failure. A series of loud explosive whumps reverberated inside the metal shell as the interior blew itself to pieces. Then flames shot out the top, and showers of sparks jetted out from the slave linked robots. The whole lot shuddered and the room’s lights flickered. Processors, turrets, and heads emitted high pitched screeches, then exploded. Shrapnel flew in all directions. Thrax dropped to the floor and covered his head while Kal just gaped, an odd little smile on his face.

The crocyborg slammed to the floor with a tremendous clang, followed by the other machines. Tentacles shuddered and went limp. Acrid black smoke curled out of every aperture and slit.

The mechanical trash army was somnolent once more.

Thrax scrunched his nose. The acrid stench of burning plastic was overpowering. There was a distant dull clunk, the twang of enclosed metal sheets, and then a soft steady rush of air as automatic systems activated.

“Wooo!” cried Kal, arcing his back and howling at the ceiling. “How’s that! Shot to the kisser!”

“About God damn time,” said Thrax, climbing to his feet. He rubbed his irritated nose. There were cuts all over his torso from the microsaws. He ran soft finger tips over them, smearing blood. His fatigues were shredded. Ruined. That was a bigger problem. His mom had sewn these fatigues by hand, old school. The cuts? They healed as he watched. Thrax shot Kal a cross look. “What took you so long?”

“Dramatic timing, my friend.” Kal sauntered over, spinning the pistol on a finger nonchallantly. He quickly lost control and the weapon flew off into a junk pile, falling between cracks, into likely oblivion. “Shit.” He dusted off his prim waistcoat and held up a hand. “Not in the face! Back off! I just saved your life.” Tension flooded out of his shoulders. Kal looked around at the mess. “Teach me not to keep functional weaponry around,” he added, and poked at the ragged crag that had been the stasis unit. “What a waste,” he sighed. “Hauled this thing out of the North Pyramid, you know. Remember that place?”

Thrax grimaced. “Try not to.” Bad memories. He rubbed his chin. “Right. Let’s get armed. Who knows what that cube thing will set on us next. We gotta ditch that thing.”

“Dodecahedron,” corrected Kal. They walked over to the containment cylinder. “No ditching. Don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“That’s okay. After what just happened I’m not listening to you.” Thrax moved towards the little metal bauble.

“Thrax, Thrax! Relax! Hear what Houston said? Called it a ‘command nodule’. Well, if this lil’ puppy really was acting against us, it’d have activated everything, or at least picked something better than an old, half-dead cryocyborg. I got lots of top of line stuff here.”

“So? None of it works! Explain.”

Kal shrugged. “I thought you didn’t want to hear my opinion.” He settled down again before the mysterious metal lump.

“Fine.” Thrax knealt beside him. “Just this once.”

“Cryoborg was in conservation mode. Probably had passive sensors on. Detected the nodule. Nodule is power. Hope. So it threw everything it had left into a bid to secure it, nearly icing us in the process. Probably trying to get back to his health provider, which no longer exists, so it went bananas. Yeah. You see that sphere?” whispered Kal, turning and pointing at the inert black sphere.

“The black basketball of doom? Yeah,” said Thrax, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t like looking at it. “Sucks light in like it’s got no freakin’ surface.”

“Yeah. Well, this,” he said in a hushed voice, jabbing at the dodecahedron, “could control it. Along with everything else here of worth. If it worked and had a will. In which case we’d all be toast. It’s an Alpha Omega Unit.”

“So?” The term meant nothing to Thrax.

“So?!?” gasped Kal, as if he were regarding a retarded dog. “Don’t you watch banned threevee recordings?”

“No, they’re banned.”

“Whatever. With this, you can command anything. Anywhere. Everywhere!”

Thrax looked down at the small, unassuming metal object and smiled. This thing would save his ass after all.

Why I hated The Hateful Eight

The flick follows a bounty hunter, John 'The Hangman' Ruth (Kurt Russell), who picks up Major Marquis Warren (Samuel Jackson), another bounty hunter and former cavalry officer in the Union Army, and the new town sheriff, Chris Mannix (Or so he says… he's a racist ex-Confederate raider, and he sure don't seem trustworthy) on the way to a haberdashery as a deadly blizzard closes in.

Russell and Jackson have bounties with them. Jackson's are dead, but Russell has a live one: a foul mouthed woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh). She's worth a cool ten thousand dollars, and Ruth means to see her hang.

The owners of the haberdashery are mysteriously away, leaving it in the care of Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir). Major Warren is immediately suspicious.

There are three others at the habedashery : the local executioner (Tim Roth), a cowboy (Michael Madsen), and an old Confederate general (Bruce Dern).

John Ruth is suspicious of everyone; he's paranoid and sees threats to his bounty everywhere, leading to tension and, eventually, conflict.

It might have been titled The Hateful Snore, which would have explained the five minute overture. The first half is all introductions ("I know you!" x 8), followed by Intermission.

The second half is a badly written stage play drenched in blood and brains.

It's Tarantino at his most self-indulgent: crass, vulgar, hateful and ugly. The film wallows in the sick side of humanity with the glee of a pig in a mud pit.

For three hours.

Which would be fine if it was entertaining.

Instead, it's tedious.

This is no fault of the actors, who give it their all, including the bit players.

The cinematography was fabulous (it's shot in 70mm), the score even better (it's Ennio Morricone), and the main set, a haberdashery (a word Quentin seems very fond of), was delightful in its detailed eccentricity. 

Kurt Russell's mustache is so magnificent it deserves an entry in the credits.

But the film doesn't gel.

The always lovely Zoe Bell shows up and is quickly dispatched, along with Dana Gourrier, Belinda Owino, and Gene Jones.

Tarantino's a visionary with in-depth knowledge of the medium. He's one of the most idiosyncratic voices in cinema, along with Wes Anderson and Kaufman.

But even the greats can misstep.

It's all the saaaaame!!!

According to John Yorke, over at The Atlantic:

"A ship lands on an alien shore and a young man, desperate to prove himself, is tasked with befriending the inhabitants and extracting their secrets. Enchanted by their way of life, he falls in love with a local girl and starts to distrust his masters. Discovering their man has gone native, they in turn resolve to destroy both him and the native population once and for all.

Avatar or Pocahontas? As stories they’re almost identical. Some have even accused James Cameron of stealing the Native American myth. But it’s both simpler and more complex than that, for the underlying structure is common not only to these two tales, but to all of them.
Take three different stories:

A dangerous monster threatens a community. One man takes it on himself to kill the beast and restore happiness to the kingdom ...

It’s the story of Jaws, released in 1976. But it’s also the story of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem published some time between the eighth and 11th centuries.

And it’s more familiar than that: It’s The Thing, it’s Jurassic Park, it’s Godzilla, it’s The Blob—all films with real tangible monsters. If you recast the monsters in human form, it’s also every James Bond film, every episode of MI5, House, or CSI. You can see the same shape in The Exorcist, The Shining, Fatal Attraction, Scream, Psycho, and Saw. The monster may change from a literal one in Nightmare on Elm Street to a corporation in Erin Brockovich, but the underlying architecture—in which a foe is vanquished and order restored to a community—stays the same. The monster can be fire in The Towering Inferno, an upturned boat in The Poseidon Adventure, or a boy’s mother in Ordinary People. Though superficially dissimilar, the skeletons of each are identical."

Huh.

Read the whole thing.

For the book length version, see The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. 

 

It's good.

Chapter 8 of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

Once more Monday rolls around and rears its ugly head; but don't worry, there's another installment of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom to add further insanity to your morning.

(Pardon the glitches with the paragraphs. For some reason it's not picking them up properly when I paste it in from Word.)

“Ma, that was stupid,” said Thrax as he righted an over-turned chair. “I told you to keep Sally inside during day hours.”

“Thanks, Mr. Obvious,” said Megan from the kitchenette. Thrax sighed. Mom always did this.

Occupied her mind with chores when stressed. Cooking food channeled her nervous energy into productive activity. It could have easily been generated, piping hot and aesthetically styled, instantly by a Drexler box, but not his mom. She preferred the old ways. Touch vegetables with her hands. Cut them with a knife. Something about home cooking, real cooking, a certain taste, that the boxes couldn’t duplicate. She’d even tried to teach Thrax to cook. “Trill sold us out. She wants our unit.”

Sally sat quietly on the couch while Thrax prowled back and forth. “If I hadn’t gotten back when I did, Sally’d be gone, ma,” said Thrax.

“He had a warrant,” snapped Megan. She stepped out of the kitchenette and jabbed a spoon at him. “And you’d be just as invalid as your sister if I hadn’t broken every rule.”

Thrax went slack jawed. “Say what?”

“Nothing.” Megan stirred the pasta with quick, sharp jabs.

“No seriously,” Thrax pressed, growing petulant. “I want to know.”

“It means,” sighed Megan, “that I spent over a year on you. Snuck into the labs and slaved over your DNA, swapping exons, programming transposons, adding custom retroviruses. Made you as perfect as I could. Stole threads from the donor bank, wove them in, too. We have Presidents, movie stars, and athletes in the banks. Bigwigs. Alphas. Taboo against using them is just stupid. Legacy laws” She shook her head angrily. “No lawyers anymore so what the hell. But if any of the other DNA Jockeys had found out... You’d have been discarded. Either way.”

Thrax felt cold. “Never told me this before.”

“You’re a genetically engineered superman! I thought you’d have figured it out on your own. I made you smart. Not smart enough, I guess. No Santa Claus, m’dear.”

Thrax bristled at that. “Leave Santa out of this.” He’d loved Santa Claus as a kid. The benevolent, immortal ancient, who might still be alive. Why was he any more unrealistic than flying entelodons with diaherrea? Ridiculing it was her way of saying there was no Nirvana, no happy ending, no easy way out. The world was a cluster fuck, suffering and pain and struggle and blood and sweat. Red in tooth and claw. On a certain level, Thrax rebelled against that. He’d make the world a better place somehow. Someday. Even if it was only a tiny pocket of sanity in a sea of madness. “Anyway, why didn’t you—,” he started, pointing at Sally. The question was so obvious it didn’t need to be said.

Megan glared at him and slammed down the spoon. “Why do you think? Because I got caught!” She shook with anger. “Do I have to explain everything?”

Thrax waited. He felt ashamed.

“You’ve no idea what I’ve had to do to keep us safe, so don’t you lecture. It’s a pitiless world.” Megan walked back into the kitchenette and leant over the pot of pasta, let her face be caressed by steam. Moisture gathered on her chin. “So what will happen now?”

Thrax, reeling emotionally, rubbed his eyes. “Execution.”

Darwin’s disembodied voice filled his head, “According to the colony’s multilayered codes, you and your sister will be executed, while members of your extended family will be exiled, without trial. I can find no records related to DNA tampering on your record, although several inquiries along this line were made by Guardian Ghatz.”

“I need options,” said Thrax.

Megan stood still for a moment. “We could run.”

“Could,” said Thrax dully. “Wouldn’t get far. Ghatz. They’d come after us.”

“If we sabotaged the base first,” said Sally, piping up. “Cause chaos. Set things on fire. Send up the sewer worms.” Her eyes gleamed.

Thrax gave her a worried look. Sometimes he wasn’t sure just who his sister was.

Megan crossed her arms and smiled, leaning against their prehistoric fridge. “That’s my baby.”

Thrax felt a sudden tingle and looked down at his arm. Something vibrated in his pant pocket. He fished into it with his hand and pulled out the dodecahedron.

“What’s that?” asked Sally, looking at the small metal object as he turned it over.

“Not sure. Maybe a bargaining chip.”

He activated his interphone and thought a connection.

“What?” answered a sharp, clipped voice. “This better be good, I’m swirlin’ substrate foam.”

“Kal, it’s Thrax.”

“I know, stupid. What do you want, throwback?”

“Coming down to the lab. Got something I think you’ll want to see.”

****

“They attacked me,” sputtered Ghatz. He was still angry over how wrong the confrontation had gone, and the impertinence of their resistance. It was unacceptable that a lower class creature such as Thrax should be stronger and better looking than Ghatz, light of the new Guardian generation. It upset the natural order of things. “And my bouncers,” he added as an afterthought. “I demand satisfaction, Senator. I demand it!”

He stood in a softly lit, wood paneled room, right out of a 19th century gentleman’s club. Red padded chairs with exquisite mahogany frames, separated by ornate tables, were set beneath elegant chandeliers of the finest crystal. Sparkling, semi-transparent holographic nudes danced in and out of the lights, smiling and laughing silently. Gold framed paintings of steamy erotica by Gustave Courbet decorated the walls.

An overweight man, coddled by plush upholstery, sat before Ghatz. Ghatz thought the man looked like a cross between a bloated corpse and a beached whale, but didn’t dare say so. This was Senator Lacus, the real power and ruler of Pleasurepit Five, who owned fifty-one per cent of the company stock. Supposedly descended from a real United States of America senator, too. Ghatz idolized and hated him. Lacus was fat, lazy, indolent. Yet within all that bag of blubber and cholesterol was a ruthless, capable mind. One that would help Ghatz seize ultimate power. Until then, he wouldn’t cross the senator.

Lacus idly swirled his glass of brandy, watching the rolling surface of the liquid. He had two chins and a low brow that set sharp calculating eyes in shadow. On the table beside him was a tray of snails and oysters in porcelain cups. He grabbed one and sucked down the oyster in a single gulp, then smacked his thick, sensuous lips. He wiped the oyster juice on his smoking jacket, then downed his brandy and waited.

A dutiful sexbot waitress stepped forward and refilled the Lacus’ glass while Ghatz stood and tapped his foot impatiently.

Senator Lacus patted the sexbot’s bottom. “Hmm. How nice, yes. Come see me after, my dear, won’t you?” said Lacus, flashing crooked teeth.

She bowed and strutted away.

Ghatz watched her go, eyes glued to her buttocks, appreciating the hypnotic curves. He’d have to summon her later, after the senator was done. Then wipe the records so the senator didn’t know. Strange how insatiable he was. He’d slowly peel back her bustier...

“Ahem.” Lacus cleared his throat. “Focus, my boy.”

Ghatz flushed red and blurted, “Do I have to spell it out for you? Revenge! I want revenge!”

“And you’ll have it, my dear, beautiful boy. Fret not. Soon,” he said softly, and took a sip of soothing, thousand year old brandy.

Ghatz stalked back and forth in front of the senator like a caged animal. “I swear you are always favouring them,” he complained. “Same as last time. Pack animals! Dross! They’ve no loyalty to the greater colony. To the team. Just a primitive family unit. Such base loyalties weaken the whole. You taught me that!”

“True, my boy, but the old ways do die hard,” replied Lacus.

Ghatz exploded: “They’re aren’t! In case you haven’t noticed. When’s the last time you went into the lower levels? By the Founding Fathers! I am, we are, fighting to achieve, to realize the ideal, to free ourselves from nature and savagery, to renew the world,” he sputtered. “We are the first mover of the re-enlightenment, who are pushing the envelope of change. Everything depends on me! Us! We need to get our ducks in a row. Does that struggle mean nothing to you?!?”

“Manage your expectations,” Lacus groaned and shifted in the chair. “Ideology can become tiresome. Think of it more as a tool, a lever that can move the masses. And remember, the easiest path between two points is not always the direct one.”

Ghatz rolled his eyes. “Don’t weave your philosophical nonsense with me,” he spat. “What does that even mean?”

Lacus slipped a snail in his mouth and bit it. A little juice jetted out and dribbled down his chin. “Perhaps I’ve overestimated you. The lower levels have less influence and fewer numbers every generation. They pose no serious threat. Now. We don’t want to calcify, do we? Of course not. An element of chaos keeps society healthy. And we need a miserable bottom rung to keep the rest in line. Show them where they might wind up, as it were. Remember, my dear, it’s about the greater happiness, not the individual.”

“They’ve nothing to do with me. They’re disgusting,” said Ghatz. “Spiritually. Physically. Ideologically. Gushing like a pack of dogs, yeah? And that abomination, Thrax! Thinks he’s above Guardians. Above us, the rightful authorities! He even tried to hit me. Me!” He jabbed a finger at his chest and nodded for emphasis, shaking with outrage lit by frustration. “That little demon girl electrocuted two of my bouncers with their own prods! It’ll take days for them to recover.”

Lacus shrugged. “Never been impressed with those mindless thugs. Serves them right. And you should be more careful. Guardians must be constantly vigilant with helots, my boy. Never let them get the upper hand. Consider this a valuable lesson.”

“Explain to me why I can’t execute the lot of them, or I’ll do it anyway. Effectual truth. At the end of the day, the law will support me.”

“Oh, please! Don’t be so melodramatic,” soothed Lacus. “Have a drink. A Guardian must act from reason, not emotion, and yours are out of control. Quite shamefully so, if I may say.”

Ghatz froze. That struck home.

Lacus looked down into his brandy glass. “I checked the surveillance feed. Thrax received something from that android, outside, you know. Ran it through the databank. It’s fragmentary, of course, but preliminary analysis suggests it might be... valuable. I removed that section from the feed. Mum’s the word. You’ll leave his family alone until we find out exactly what it is.” He waved a chubby finger in a complex pattern, and a hologram of the main council chamber, centred on the android, flicked into view before them.

Ghatz frowned at the shimmering scene, resenting it beyond words. “And if it isn’t important?”

“Why then, my boy,” said Lacus, emptying his snifter, “you can execute the lot of them.”