Chapter 11 of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

It's that day again. 

Time fo' mo' Magnum:

Thrax woke to find himself standing in a vast, empty amusement park wearing his favourite Tarzan pajamas.

Before a castle of gleaming silver stood the android, in a state of much better health than he’d been in a moment before. The synthetic man strode down towards Thrax. To the right, upon a great pile of gold treasure, lounged a red dragon. It looked down upon them with evil eyes. White wisps of smoke drifted from its flaring nostrils. To the left was a tree village populated by dead eyed elves silently smoking long, thin pipes and eating soft tortilla chips.

“Where am I?”

“The Land of Wonder,” replied the android calmly. “The Worlds of Tomorrow Entertainment Complex and Amusement Park. Heart of the Engines of Creation, realm of the Dark Lord. The big bad, as it were. Our mutual enemy, Mr. Thrax.”

Thrax looked over the android. “You look better.”

“I am dying,” replied the artificial man with a wan smile. “But then, so are you.”

“Me? Nah. I feel fine,” said Thrax with false bravado.

“You won’t, soon enough” said the android. “The synvirus will dissolve you in seven days time. It will not be a pleasant death.” The android shrugged. “Sorry.”

Thrax punched Eight-Oh-Nine in the face. The android stumbled back, then righted himself, undamaged. He looked at Thrax with pity. “Do you feel better? You may hit me again if you like.”

“Why? Why the hell me?” Thrax asked.

The dragon laughed, rumbling laughter shaking its elephantine belly and causing vibrations to course through the ground.

“Chance. The general injustice of existence. But there is a way to avoid a horrible fate. A cure.”

“Peachy. What?” asked Thrax, skeptical.

“If you infect the Dark Lord, the virus will leave you unharmed. And save the world.” The dragon turned its head like a bird and focused a vast yellow eye on the android.

“Planet’s pretty screwed up as it is,” snorted Thrax. “But I get it. Do or die.”

“Yes. Look,” said Eight-Oh-Nine, gesturing at a man imprisoned in a medieval stock.

“Hello, Thrax,” said Darwin, waving glumly.

Thrax rounded on the android. “What have you done with Darwin?”

“I’ve overridden him for the time being. My consciousness,” said the android, “will be coming along with you.”

“Let Darwin go,” demanded Thrax. “Or no dice.”

The android shook his head sadly. “I will activate every pain receptor in your body on a randomized schedule until you cooperate.”

Thrax punched the android in the face again.

The android took the blow, then continued calmly, as if he was dealing with a disobedient and unruly child. “It need not be entirely unpleasant. As I can punish, so too can I reward, by stimulating the pleasure centres of your brain.”

Thrax felt a tingle. “Holy!”

“Like so. I also noticed your reaction to the female technowitch.” “You mind your own business, pal.”

“Her name is Mindy. She’s young. Powerful. Combines the gene lines of ancients who had high level command nanites. A clear threat to the Dark Lord. But inexperienced. Unfocused. Vulnerable as a catepillar in a cocoon. Alone, on her own, he will win. She needs your help as much as I.”

Thrax gave it some thought. She was pretty hot. He couldn’t leave her hanging. Wouldn’t be chivalrous. Hell, this was the kind of heroic rescue mission he’d always wanted. A world to save, a beautiful princess to rescue.

Purpose.

Who could ask for more? And, honestly, there didn’t seem to be much choice. “Okay, like I said, I’ll do it. But I think you’re a jerk wad. You could have just asked nicely.”

“Perhaps. And yes, I will release Darwin the instant the Engines of Creation are destroyed.”

Eight-Oh-Nine held out a hand.

They shook.

“Are you ready to go back, Mr. Thrax?”

He nodded, then remembered as the world began to swim. “Wait, wait! The dodecahedron!”

“Oh, yes.” The android smiled mischievously, his image distorting with his surroundings. “That will be our secret. Tell no one else. Give it to the girl, when you find her. It will give her the power to defeat The Dark Lord if the virus fails. Always have a backup plan, Mr. Thrax. Now?”

“Yeah,” replied Thrax. “Your guts better not have stained my pants.”

As the world dissolved around him, it occurred to him that in the great joke that was life, he’d just become one of the punchlines.

****
Panting, Ghatz rolled off of Jez and stared at the blood red ceiling.

“That was incredible,” he gasped, drenched in sweat.

Jez leaned over him and ran a finger around his left nipple.

“I told you it would be worth it,” she purred, and gave the nipple a sharp squeeze. Ghatz gasped and she planted her lips over his open mouth, kissed him hard, whipping her tongue about, tasting his tonsils, then shoved him away. She slid to the side of the bed. She was still wearing her thigh high boots and bustier. She slipped on her latex bikini and stood up.

“We’re going to make a great team,” said Ghatz, admiring her buttocks.

“We?” repeated Jez, a shadow crossing her cruel features. She turned about. “There is no ‘we’. There’s only me. You’re a clerk, a front man, commander of this mission in name only. You’ll take my orders. Is that understood?”

“Please.” Ghatz propped his head up on one hand. “You’re squad leader. Andromeda is no longer in command, just like you wanted. But don’t push it. I lead this mission. You’re nothing but an android.”

Jez jumped on to the bed, straddling him, and belted him in the face. Snatching a knife from the bedside table, she pressed it to his throat.

He looked up at her and for the first time, fear in his eyes. Even Jez was a little surprised.

Control engrams should have prevented her from going this far.

“How...?” Ghatz sputtered, frozen in place.

She pressed her face into his.

“Personality over programming,” she sneered, half speculating. “You humans think you’re in control. But you’re not.” She turned the knife. “Are you?”

“Release me. At once,” he said sternly, using command tones.

Jez froze for a moment. Started to withdraw. Then pressed the knife back, hard enough to draw a speck of blood. She laughed. “I don’t think so. Not this time. Not anymore.”

Ghatz swore under his breath. “You’ve got a serious discipline problem. This mission is the biggest opportunity of my life. Lacus himself gave me command. It’s my core competency. I’ll die before I give up control!” He glared up at her defiantly. “You’re just going to have to kill me. See what that gets you.”

Jez considered this for a moment, then shifted the knife down below, to his blood engorged staff. “I could do worse.”

“Go ahead, I’ll have a new one grown in an hour.”

They glared hate at each other for what seemed like an eternity. With a laugh, Jez broke the tension and sat up. Relaxed. Smiled.

She tapped him gently on the chest with the tip of the knife. She’d have to be indirect, clever, but properly handled, this mission could result in her, Jez Lykopis, android, ruling the planet as its immortal, beautiful, undying queen. She just had to sell the team out to The Dark Lord, then seduce him. Turn him into her sex slave. Armies would be no defense. She had the skills to make any man she wanted whimper and beg. The possibilities felt so close, so powerful, she could explode. This Ghatz creature would be a stepping stone leading, eventually, to ultimate power. “You’ve more balls than I’d have given a worm like you credit for.”

“Fuck you. You’re colder than a witch’s tit.”

“Yes,” she said, putting the knife aside and pulling down her bikini again. She rubbed her bubble like buttocks against his quivering meat rod. “I think we’re going to make a good team after all.”

And she slipped him inside her and thought of Thrax.

Stay classy, my friends, so I don't have to.

The 100 Season 3 Premiere: Wanheda Review

The most attractive Post-Apocalypse since the Eloi.

The Post-apocalypse 90210 is back, baby!

And it's off to a rocky start.

Some details are jarring: there are broad, flat and possibly graded roads now for jeeps (yes, they have jeeps). Who made the road, and why? There are no cars. Well. Now there are. But come on, do you see Grounders doing road work? They wear skulls for decorations. They'd be more likely to eat the road crew.

But that's just nit picking.

The episode starts a couple months after the end of the last series. The passage of time is shown through Murphy's eyes, who's been locked inside a bunker for eighty days (giver or take) and is on the verge of insanity, watching the same video over and over again until he can quote it verbatim. It does give the writers a chance to info dump about the fall of human civilization and the role possibly played by the mysterious AI in a red dress.

Funny how AIs always represent themselves as foxy women in red dresses.

I'm not complaining.

Anyway, crazy former commander Jaha lets Murphy out after the opening credits, and tells him about the City of Light. It's real, but virtual, or really virtual. Virtually real? Take the blue pill, Murphy. Have a juicy steak with Agent Smith. They hint at a Matrix like angle, and if that's the case, it opens up a pile of possibilities for scenes set in our current world, with all the budget savings that has to offer.

Commander 'Gonzo' Jaha has teamed up with the AI, who may, or may not, have destroyed humanity. There are hints both ways. Jaha and Red Dress have gotten a nuclear reactor going, and just in time. It can provide the power for the hot showers Clarke's going to need.

Clarke's been living in the woods, feral style, wrestling black panthers and selling meat to a trading post. Because that's what you do in the future. She looks like she hasn't bathed in three months, and she's gone Ginger. Or is that mud?

Apparently, Clarke's being hunted by everybody, who want her Mean Mama Mojo.

Feeling lonely despite all the panther snuggling, Clarke and the young lass managing the trade shop have some hot, steamy and arguably gratuitous sex. Then Clarke's off again, only to fall… into pushing the plot forward. Because something has to happen in the episode.

"I'm a star now, I don't have to bathe!"

Young Jasper, in the meantime, has gone over-the-top bananas over the loss of his one true love, Vegan Vampire Girl, and repeatedly manifests a death wish. He's so annoying about it you just wish they let him do it.

But no. Jasper's dragged along on a mission by Beefcake (Bellamy), Worrywart, and Lame Leg Lady. They drive a jeep across fields… which clearly show the lines of cut grass made by sweeps of modern machinery. CUT GRASS, people. In the Post-Apocalypse! I had no idea there would still be landscaping. Makes it much more appealing.

The 100 is going for epic on a shoe string, so you have to accept this sort of thing. They gotta cut cost corners somewhere, and the grass got it. Just use your imagination and think of Love Canal.

Where did they get a jeep? Best guess is Mount Weather, because why would you have one on a space station? Yet the Weather folks didn't seem to use them. Could be wrong. Not important, a throw away line later will cover it, no doubt.

Otherwise, more of the same. War is looming on the horizon, because stuff. Adults are proven wrong and praise the superior wisdom of teenagers. A real life pop singer makes an appearance to sing and play the piano. Two hunky guys fight with their shirts off.

It's fun and gleeful, but even more preposterous than usual.

The combat skills and abilities of some characters, who spent their entire lives in, essentially, antiseptic closets, are now elite warriors, which kinda makes the savage Grounders look incompetent and needlessly lame. Maybe they wear skull ornaments to compensate. They'd be ten times more dangerous and competent if they were teenagers. Their leader, Doe-Eyes (Lexa), is a teen, after all.

It's still the CW.

The premiere is only the opening salvo.

It's packed with set up and teen tropes.

All the better to subvert and kill them later.

Here's hoping.

"I have to go do ab crunches."

Micro-Reviews: Cop Car, Tomorrowland, and Focus

Cop Car is a low budget independent film, but the story was built for that. Felt kinda slight, but well done for what it was. Two kids steal a crooked cop's car, tool about, get in trouble, find stuff they shouldn't in the trunk. Unfortunately I found my attention wandering. Might be more me than the film. It stars Kevin Bacon, who does a bang up job. He's making interesting choices; I quite liked him in Super, too.

 

Tomorrowland was awful. Worst Brad Bird picture by far. I thought it was shockingly bad for him. It suffers from the opposite problem of the far superior Cop Car: Tomorrowland's just jam packed with too much damn stuff. It's disjointed, cluttered, unfocused. More a diatribe than a story. Yes, I know I am criticizing a film making overman, but I do this as an entitled consumer, not a creator. Has Brad Bird lost his mojo? Does he need Austin Powers to help him go back in time and get it back? There's his next movie. You're welcome.

Focus was… better, but not great. Con men and women playing games. Derivative, manufactured genre material. Just chuck in the stock con artist movie bits and stir. More of an excuse for Will Smith to make out with Margot Robbie than a movie. What can I say? I can't exactly blame the guy.

I'm getting so jaded in my old age.

The 100: Season Three Inbound

Season Three is on the horizon, and it looks to be filled with lots of lovely detritus.

"Season three synopsis: Season three picks up three months after the events of season two. The war is over and the battle against Mount Weather has been won. The prisoners have returned home to a world seemingly at peace but a sense of normalcy is short lived. Threats old and new test loyalties and push limits."

And there's a trailer:

This pleases me.

Let the killing of the teens begin again. Death match 90210!

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.