Terminal Limits - Nano 2012

[joegoda]

5557 / 50000 words. 11% done!

I was expecting… I don't know.  Someplace dark, someplace that smelled of must and old tennis shoes.  I wasn't expecting anything really.  I was just blindly following a tiny Sith Master named Arnold trying to keep from being nabbed by the Ominous Government.

It wasn't dark, exactly.  It was a space, a place hidden between two walls, I think.  Brick walls to the left and right, it looked like this little hideout was built in an alley and then walled away.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I never got around to asking.

The room was about eighteen feet square and lit by some high hanging red led lamps.  There was power here, because there was a radio playing some Electric Light Orchestra off in a part of the place I hadn't seen yet.  The ceiling was pretty high, some 12 or 20 foot over my head, reinforcing the idea that this area was built out of an alley.  I caught site of mini Darth just as she slipped through a curtain that lead deeper in to the red lit gloom and followed her lead.

"Hey!"  I didn't yell it out.  I more whispered it.  That's what you do in a strange enclosed space that's lit entirely with red light.  You whisper.  Same concept as spook houses.  "Where am I?  What the hell is going on?"

A hand reached from behind me and took my elbow, causing me to jump out of my skin.  Would have liked to have said I whirled, ninja like and prepared to do battle, but I'm not a ninja and I don't know how to battle.

"Don't do that, Man."  The voice was male and raspy.  "You'll run into the wall, and I promise you, it hurts."   I've heard that voice somewhere.  It was kind of a Tom Waits voice, all soft and sounding like the owner gargled with gravel and sulfuric acid.

Whirling around and babbling an odd apology for scaring the man, I looked at the owner of the bluesy voice.  He was tall, dressed in a brown jacket and wearing an old battered pork pie hat.  There was a red feather still hanging on in the hat band, and it, too, looked as if it had seen better days.  The man's face was long, longer than a face should be, and narrow.  To call it craggy would not do it justice.  Crags would come nowhere near this face.  These were canyons, dried river beds, canals on Mars.  He carried lines of sorrow the way some folks carry spare change for the bus.  Grey stubble covered his chin and jowls like a lawn.

"Sorry, man," I whispered to him.  "I didn't know you were there.  You scared the pee out of me."  I moved a little closer and smelled the distinct scent of bad twelve year old scotch.  "Do I know you?"

"You drink coffee, man?"  The character moved past me and into the nether regions not quite as well lit as the gloomy part I was in.  "Come on, man.  Agent Wilson won't find you in here.  We're too well shielded." 

I followed close by.  So, Ominous Government had a name.  Agent Wilson.  I wondered what he wanted with.  I wondered this with extreme prejudice and I brought this up.  "Who is this Wilson, and while we're at it, though I don't want to seem ungrateful, who the hell are you?"

We passed through a beaded wall to a section of the hideout that held four chairs at a table that looked like a refugee from a child's playroom and a hotplate.  Plugged into an outlet on the wall was an old time radio, green and ancient, looking like something out of my 1960 childhood.

My grizzled benefactor poured two cups of coffee and gave me one.  He moved to the table and sat down at one of the red backed kitchen chairs.  The cup I held was old, green and made of what they used to call Corelle.  My mom had a whole set of these things, dishes and casseroles and coffee cups made out of this kind of glassy plastic sort of stuff.

I sat on the chair across from the guy, who still hadn't told me his name.  He was watching me, and I was watching him.  I think he was waiting for me to make a connection.  He just sat there, wearing a smug look on his hound dog face.  If he had been wearing an old straw boater instead of that pork pie, he would have looked like Huckleberry hound, except more grizzled and dirty.

Then a light bulb went off.  It wasn't a bright lightbulb, because it didn't need to be.  Just one of those little half watt bulbs.

"You're Conspirnet, aren't you?" I sputtered out.  "The guy who sent me those chats."

He nodded, still watching me, sipping his coffee.  The coffee, for those keeping track of these things, was very good.  Some high grade Columbian mix that had a full body and really good aroma.

I sat there, watching him, looking around at his secret hideout.  I figured if I wasn't going to get any answers from the guy, I might as well take a look at his 'Ugrnd'.

It was still a box.  Bricked in, nothing special.  There was a darkened computer sitting on an old school desk in the corner.  It was turned on, I could see the power light blinking.  It had been sitting idle for a while now.  At least as long as it took for mini Darth to come get me. Which reminded me…

"Say, thanks for sending mini Darth out to get me," I said with as much cheer as possible.  "Your timing was perfect."

At least it wiped the smug of his face.  He pushed the brim of his hat back an inch and asked, "Who?  Darth?"

Um… this didn't seem like a computer mastermind to me.

"That was my daughter, Arnie," he said.  "It was her idea that you needed rescuing.  She'll be back in a second.  Just wanted to make sure the truck was taken care of."

"Your… daughter."  Hmm.  "She's a girl?"

"Yeah, my daughter would have to be a girl." he growled between sips of coffee.  He drained it pretty quick, got up and got some more.  He offered me a bit and I declined.  "I know she's a bit small for her age, but she's feisty."

"You know," I told him, "I still don't know your name."

"You ain't gonna either, man." He sat down across from me again and grew his quietly smug smile.  "At least for a while.  Arnie said I didn't have to even talk to you and that the less I knew, the better, and that's just fine with me."

"So," I was not quite confused, but I was working on it, "you didn't send me those chat messages?"

"No, man."  He shook his head, as if at a dog that just couldn't fetch.  "You're not a feeb are you? Arnie said you were pretty smart and that was why we needed you."

Feeb?  I didn't even know what that was, but I was pretty sure I wasn't one of them, and I told him so.  "If you're not the one, then it was… your daughter Arnie?"

"That's what I've been saying, man.  This whole thing was her idea."  He looked around at the hideout.  "In fact, this whole place was her idea, too.  She stumbled on it a while back.  It's got running water, electricity, and free wi-fi. We found the original owner back there." He pointed to some spot over my shoulder.  "Dead as a doornail."  He shrugged.  "That was two years ago.  We've been living here ever since."

Okay, I wasn't exactly stunned.  There are dead end alleys all over this town.  I never gave much thought to them.  It does makes an odd sense for someone smart to come in and wall up one end so that it looked like a dead end, hook into the nearest water and power supply and hey presto! You've got an instant apartment almost off the grid.

"Do you get mail?"  I had to ask.

"Sure, man.  We're not losers," he said.  "We have a post office box.  Easy Peasy."

Schwarzenegger's electronic voice came behind me.

"Has he been much trouble, Pops?"  Which, coming from Schwarzenegger is a pretty weird thing to hear.

"No, Arnie. He's just been asking simple questions." He stood and got more coffee and a cigar from somewhere.  "Nothing I couldn't handle.  He's pretty confused, though."  He stepped further away, into the gloom.  "I’m gonna go smoke, Arnie.  He gives you any trouble, you yell Hey Rube."

"I will, Pops.  Don’t worry."  Arnold… Arnie rather, sat in the chair her father had just left.  She was still wearing her all blacks and talking through the vocorder.  "Now then."

"Yeah," I echoed.  "Now then."  I waited.  I stared at her blank ninja mask and thought she was going to say something.  She didn't, so I took the initiative.  "The old man says you're his daughter.  That true?"  I figured I'd start with something small and calm and work up to me screaming 'What the hell is going on'.

"Ol' Tom is a good man," Schwarzenegger's voice said.  "Yes, he's my father. Adopted, sort of.  He's been around a long time, so you be nice to him."

"Cool," I said, friendly like. "I can do that.  He's a nice guy."

"Yes he is."

"Makes good coffee, too."

"Yes.  Yes he does."

"Look," I said, a bit less cheerful. "I appreciate you showing up just as the guys with ties did, but I have to ask you a couple of questions.  Frankly, I'd rather you just start telling me everything, so I don't have to ask, but apparently you and your father aren't the talkative type, so is that okay?  Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

I could see her eyes narrow behind her ninja mask.  "Sure. Ask away." Schwarzenegger's voice sounded tight.

"One," I ticket off a finger, "Is there any way that I can talk to you without having my questions answered by a dead governor?"

"No," came the terse reply.  "Not yet.  If you aren't the right guy, then I'll have to throw you back."

"And if I knew who you were, you'd have to kill me?" I said jokingly.

"Something like that," Arnie said, not joking at all.

"Really?"

"Really."

Suddenly it all got serious.  As if being chased by guys from the government wasn't serious enough. 

"Okay," I changed my tone to be as deadly serious as hers, without the Austrian undertones.  "I can play the same game.  What the hell is going on?  Why did those Government types break into my apartment.  Why did you send me the chat messages?  And how did you do that?"

" Brenin," she began, "You have the unlucky position to be the only guy I knew of that could do what I need to have done.  The government knows what is going on and sent their goons to grab you first.  Agent Wilson is serious muscle.  I'm glad you moved when you did."

No answers, yet.  Okay, I could see that I was going to have to play stupid.  I sighed.

"How did you hack into my chat channel, especially when the program was turned off?"

"Oh, that was simple," she said.  "I have your IP address."

"From what?" I asked her, feeling stupid because I knew the answer immediately. "Never mind.  From when I logged onto Consprinet, right?  And you just opened up a remote session to my computer when I was online."

"Very good, Brenin!" She sounded pleased with my performance.  "You might just be the guy after all."

"Guy for what?"  I think my frustration was beginning to show.  "What did you need me for?  What unlucky position?"

Mini Darth stood up and stretched her five foot frame.  "Before I can answer that, what do you think of the link I sent you?"

"What link?"  I didn't see any link.

"Hmm."  Darth Arnie stared at me a second.  "Hold on."  She disappeared through the beaded curtain, returning carrying my laptop.  She opened it and turned it on.  Once it booted, she typed fast and furious for a quick minute or two and then handed me the 'puter.

"That link," she said.

It was a page on the Conspirnet website.  The headline was 'End of elections.  No more free ride for politicians.'  It was a page of type, no pictures to speak of.  There were a few ads for porn and get rich quick schemes, but mostly type. 

"Read it," she said.  "You've got the time.  More coffee?"

"Sure, thanks." As if we were sitting at a café somewhere.  I started reading, and found out about Mister Harold Hancock and his little bit of Congressional sleight of hand.  When I finished five minutes later, I looked up and said to her, "So?"

Old Tom had come in and gone a couple of times while I was reading.  Currently he was over at the hot plate cooking up something.  Maybe soup, maybe stew… something that smelled good.  I hadn't eaten yet.

Arnie was still dressed like a refugee from a Jet Li movie.  I wondered if it was getting hot for her.

"So?"  She sounded a bit stunned.  "So?  That's what you have to say?  So?"

"Yeah," I told her, setting the laptop on the table.  "So?  I hold conspiracy theory like this to be right up there with Big Foot.  Highly unlikely.  One guy, pissed at the congress, puts a little addendum into a bill and it passes though House, Senate and President?  Really?"

"Yes," she was not happy with my answer.  "Really. It happened.  I have a copy of the bill."

"That's pretty amazing," I told her.  "How did you get that?"

"Never mind how I got it.  You'll just have to take my word on it."  She stood defiant, arms crossed. Like I hadn't seen that stance before.  She was sincere in whatever crazy stuff she believed, I'll give her that.

"Okay," I told her, trying to get back in her good graces.  She already told me she could kill me.  She knew where we were.  She had saved me from the Government goons.  Best to keep her on good terms. "Let's say I believe you.  This bill made it to become a law.  What's to say that it won't be rescinded, repealed or whatever the government does when it makes an oopsie?"

"Because the government doesn't realize that they made an oopsie," she said, not being cute at all.  And it's not a law. It's a mandate, which, congressionally, is stronger than a law.  Added to that, it's tied to money… the salary increases that were voted in.  No way in hell will they repeal their own raises, not these bastards."

"Hmm." A pretty puzzle this.  "Okay, let's say all this happened and this 'mandate' won't go away because, like a leach, it's hooked into the lifeblood of greedy politicians.  Why am I here?  Why is Agent Wilson anxious to carry back to his den at the CIA or FBI or FEDEX or wherever he's from?"

"Agent Wilson wants you because you are the best social theorist in the country."  She stood and poured me more coffee.  I was starting to wonder if they had doped it.  I tasted it and there wasn't any odd aftertaste. "Agent Wilson wants you because the government wants you, which means the President wants you, because he knows his time is up."

"Okay, I can buy that.  Not that whole social theorist stuff.  I don't even know what that means." Okay, I lied. Let's see where it takes me. "I can buy that the President is shaking in his boots.  If this thing actually works, which I have a hard time believing it will, there will be no need for him to run for reelection, because there will be no reelection."

She pulled off her ninja mask.  She had a narrow face with high cheekbones and eyes of a baby blue that a man weaker than me would have found easy to fall into and never come back.  She had a hard innocence about her that said "Yeah, I'm tough on the outside and soft on the inside.  Don't bite me, though. I bite back."

"You’re the guy, Brenin." Her voice was like soft warm honey over ice cream.  "Social Theorist is just a fancy word for someone who knows how people think and can figure out a way to get them to do what you want them to do."

Again, I sighed.  "Okay.  I used to work in an ad agency.  So what."

"You were the best, Brenin."  She tossed her hair, looking like a model.  "I'm betting that you still are.  Apparently, so is the current administration."

"Look." I paused, thinking about the insane thing I read on the website.  "This is nuts.  There is no way we can get the entire populace of the US to accept that we are replacing Governmental offices with hardened criminals."  I thought about it for another brief second then tossed my hands up.  "It's nuts.  Crazy as bedbugs."

Because that was the mandate, insane as it might be.  Every major office was going to be occupied by criminals from the nation's jails.   Senate, House of Representatives and the President would no longer be elected.  These offices would be sentenced.

 A governing board pulled from every corner of society would oversee the selection of who would be sentenced to hard time in the Whitehouse. The board would be drafted by lottery from the general populace and would convene only when needed, which would be whenever the President screwed up or died.  Lottery appointment would be the only way of selection.  This would avoid any sort of preferential treatment to those who were making the decision.  It's hard to buy someone if nobody knows who to buy.

The board would remain completely anonymous, even to each other.  There would be a list of the 20 top societal offenders in the country, and this list would be sent to the five draftees on the board.  There would be a scheduled video chat for discussion and decision. The process would take a week, no more, no less.  If a decision was not made due to whatever might hold up the decision, then the offices would be automatically appointed, with the office of the President being given to the biggest, baddest criminal in the country's penal system.

Totally, completely, without reservation the most insane idea I'd ever heard.

And yet… there was something appealing to it.

And what did they want from me?

"Brenin," Arnie said in golden tones, "We need you to figure out how to make it work."

"Uh huh," I muttered. "And what is it that Agent Wilson wants?"

Arnie looked away briefly. "They want to kill you, so you can't figure out how to make it work."

"Simple as that?"  Seems kind of extreme a reason to kill someone.

Arnie shrugged.  "They've killed for less, Brenin."