Book 24 of 52: "The Reputation Economy" by Michael Fertik

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Sometimes, especially when I read non-fiction books, I feel a bit of despair (especially when the book discusses some large-scale environmental, governmental, or economic problem).  But other times, after I’ve read a book, I feel galvanized to take action, to get out into the world and start working on improving my status.

“The Reputation Economy,” by Michael Fertik, falls strongly into that latter category of books.
This book talks about how, in the near future, there will be far too much available data on any person for hiring agencies, airlines, and other companies to make a manual evaluation.  Instead, these companies and corporations will turn to computer algorithms, using these algorithms to create “reputation scores” for each person.

How valuable are you?  That depends on your reputation score.

There are lots of ways to increase reputation scores, Fertik insists, by doing everything from leaving Yelp reviews, to building social networks, to keeping an up-to-date LinkedIn profile, to modifying your online browsing habits.  The author recommends checking out what happens when you Google yourself (is the first page links to your professional work, or links to an amateur blog that just won’t seem to die?).

In the future, Fertik argues, online, automatically calculated reputation will be reflected in nearly every facet of your life.  Whether you earn that promotion at work, whether you get bumped up to first class on your next flight, whether you get a good rate on your home mortgage – it all depends on reputation.

Of course, there are some caveats to the author’s rosy vision of the future.  Most of the current computer algorithms can best be described as “good, not great”, and a lot of sites can’t offer a full, all-encompassing “reputation score.”  And these days, with privacy concerns looming large, more people are taking steps to cloak their online actions.

Still, I felt compelled after reading this book to get on Yelp, get on LinkedIn, and start trying to polish up my outward-facing reputation.

Can’t hurt, right?

Time to read: About 6 hours.  It’s pretty straightforward, but I paused a lot to consider the far-reaching consequences of some of the author’s suggestions.

"Grandpa, tell us a story!"

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“Urp.  Johnny, stop hitting Miranda with that!  What even is that thing, anyway?  Some sort of foam cross?”

“No, Grandpa, it’s a Minecraft sword!”

“Minecraft?  You kids and your TV games.  Whatever it is, stop hitting Miranda with it.  Give it here.  Let’s see.  Ugh, this is the sort of toys they give you?  No wonder everyone’s declaiming your generation as lazy.”

“Wot’s declamming?”

“Nothing, angel.  Okay, get into bed, and I’ll tell you a story.  Come on, tuck in the covers.  There you go.  Now, what do you want to hear about in a story?”

“Fighting!  Knights with swords!”

“Dwagons!”

“Yeah, and dragons!  Like Mirry said!”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Okay, okay, settle down.  Dragons, huh?  Well, I actually do have a couple stories about those big beasties.  But you’ll have to both stay in bed, and no getting up to hit each other.  Deal?

“Good.  Now, everyone always pictures dragons as being around back in the Middle Ages, back when brave and valiant knights would joust with them on the backs of horses, fighting them sword against scale.  But just because that’s when dragons were most prevalent, it doesn’t mean that they disappeared as humanity rose.

“No, they just became more cunning.

“You see, once humans started showing up to fight the dragons with cannons and gunpowder, the dragons soon figured out that might was no longer the way to win against these pesky little pink-skinned fighters.  Most of the dragons began taking the form of humans, walking among us.  Now, they corrupt and savage us from within, claiming their treasure through trickery instead of force.”

“Like da Repubiccans?”

“Yes, Miranda dearest, I’m pretty sure that most of the damn Republicans are dragons in disguise.  But that’s not what this story is about.

“You see, while most dragons gave up their giant lizard shapes, there was one who was too proud, to arrogant, too stubborn to accept this new change.

“His name was Carathax, and he was one of the most powerful dragons to ever fly over our world.

“Carathax saw the technology that humans now used, how we mastered steam and metal and pistons, and he sought to take these advantages for himself.  He used his cunning and his wealth to hire humans, artificers, to craft massive plates of armor for him, to augment and increase his strength through the use of steam and pistons.  He gave himself bladed talons and shielded wings, and the heat of his fiery breath drove steam through his armor.

“For thirty years, he roared and raged in pain as the human craftsmen built his armor, gave him the weapons to turn his fiery breath and scything claws into a true engine of pure destruction.”

“That’s stupid!”

“What do you mean, Johnny?”

“Well, why would humans give all this to a dragon?  Why would they help him get stronger so he could kill them?”

“Carathax offered a lot of money.  And humans have always been willing to compromise their ideals for money, I’m afraid.”

“I still think it’s dumb.”

“And my boy, I agree with you.  I’m glad you can see it.  But these humans gave Carathax what he wanted, and finally, nearly half a century later, the great dragon’s modifications were complete.  Now carrying his terrible armament, the huge wyrm lifted off into the sky, setting out to bring destruction to the land.

“And he knew his target – King Llanar.

“King Llanar had, before he became a wise and just king, been one of the world’s greatest dragon slayers.  He had used not just his strength, but his wits, outwitting dragons and luring them into traps where their normal strengths – their muscles and flight and fire – could be turned against them.  He had become both famous and wealthy for killing these rampaging dragons, but he gave back much of his wealth to the people.  He was the most popular king to rule.

“But in the fifty years, King Llanar had aged, and although he was still a strong and just king, he now had a thick gray beard, and he could no longer lift a sword as high or swing as hard.  He still kept himself trim, but he knew that his dragon fighting days were over.”

“Why did Cartha wanna kill the king?”

“Good question, my dear!  As it turned out, although not even King Llanar knew this at the time, the king had been the one to slay the dragon Selendria – Carathax’s broodmother.  From when he was young, Carathax had sworn revenge.

“And now was his time.

“With his great mechanical modifications, Carathax flew across the kingdom, setting fire to entire towns in a swoop.  His armor turned away arrows, his bladed talons cut through nets and snares, and his great jet of flame, fueled through the tubes of the human artificers, burned hot enough to melt even stone.  He killed many at each town, and to the fleeing survivors, he roared out his challenge to King Llanar.

“And even far away, across the land at his castle, the king heard that challenge, and he responded.

“He rose from his throne, gathering his strength, calling for his attendants.  ‘The kingdom is in danger,’ he told his court, ‘and I must ride out to save my people.’

“‘But you have not the strength or speed of your youth!’ cried out his advisors, his most loyal knights.  ‘You cannot hope to win!  Let us go in your stead to fight the great dragon!’

“But the king shook his head.  ‘It is with me that the beast demands battle,’ he told them, as he pulled on his shining armor, strapped on his sword, Wyrmsbane, which had served him so faithfully in battles long before.  ‘And I will not let any others die in my place.’

“And so, on the great fields of Karanor, King Llanar rode out to wait for Carathax. He went alone, and carried only a shovel and his sword.  He brought no armies, no great siege weapons.

“Two days later, the skies above the king grew dark with smoke, heralding the beast’s arrival.  Like a plunging meteor, Carathax dropped from the clouds to land in front of the tired and muddy king.

“Beneath his weight, the very earth split, the grass burned black by the heat of the creature’s inner fire.  ‘Dragon slayer, killer of my brood mother,’ Carathax greeted the king, spitting out drops of liquid fire with each word as he glared.  ‘Your kingdom is half in ruins – and after I have killed you, I shall set the other half ablaze, to burn forever!’

“‘I am sorry for killing your mother, but she killed us,’ King Llanar yelled back, as he tried to stand in the burning heat of the dragon’s very presence.  He leaned on the shovel he had brought, using it for support. The king did not even wear his sword.  ‘I have no quarrel with you!  You can leave my kingdom and do no more damage, and I shall not pursue you!’

“But the massive dragon shook his armored head.  ‘Never!’ he howled.  ‘I have sworn bloodlust, and I will see you BURN!’

“And with that, the great dragon beat his wings and lunged forward, towards the lonely king.  Llanar didn’t even have time to turn and look for his sword Wyrmsbane, for it was not even on his waist.  He had nothing but the shovel.”

“Wait!  Grandpa, what happened next?”

“Oh, you’re still awake?”

“Yeah!  You have to finish the story!”

“Okay, very well.  But I will turn off the lights.  It’s too bright in here.

“Ah, that’s better.  Now, where was I?  Oh yes.  So the dragon lunged forwards, towards the helpless king.  King Llanar just stood there, tired and muddy and leaning on the shovel, watching as this massive, heavy, armor-coated dragon bore down on him.

“And then something quite strange happened.

“As Carathax crossed the difference between him and the king, the ground, already cracked and ablaze from his very presence, suddenly opened up beneath him!  The ground cracked open beneath the weight of the dragon, and suddenly, the great wyrm found himself falling!

“With a great roar of frustration, the dragon plunged downward, into the huge pit!  The hole was large and deep – the king had spent his whole time at the fields of Karanor digging it, covering it up with a thin shell of wet mud.

“The dragon’s great heat had made the mud brittle, and the weight of his armor and mechanical devices broke through the shell.  Carathax tried to beat his wings, but he was too heavy, and could not lift off fast enough to keep from plunging down into the pit.

“And as he landed down in the pit, his belly slamming down onto the ground beneath, he landed directly on top of where King Llanar had buried Wyrmsbane, pointing straight up in the mud.

“The weight of the dragon plunged the sword into his chest, piercing between the plates of armor and into the great dragon’s heart.  Carathax let out one last bellow, and the heat of his fury burned the walls of his pit until they were black as coal and hard as stone.  But even he could not pull the blade from his chest, and that great cry was his last.

“For a long time, King Llanar stood at the edge of the pit, gazing down at the corpse of the great wyrm.  He leaned heavily on his shovel, still breathing deeply.  Wyrmsbane, his sword, was beneath the dragon’s weight, too far down to retrieve.

“And then, the king began the long, slow process of shoveling the dirt back into the hole he had dug, making sure that Carathax was lost to the world forever.”

“…Johnny?  Miranda?”

“Ah, good.  Sleep tight, my dears.  And remember, even the greatest beasts can be vanquished with courage and forethought.”

Danni California, Part 17

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I wonder how long this is going to end up being…

Continued from Part 16, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

When I next woke up, my first thought was a fervent wish that I had remained unconscious.

Everything was pain, almost blinding, sparks of red and white shooting across the blackness of my inner eyelids.  I couldn’t hold myself still, and immediately curled forward, wincing and gritting my teeth to keep from screaming.

Then I felt something cool and damp press against my forehead, and a soothing voice murmured words I couldn’t understand.

I opened my eyes.
At first, all I saw were blurred shapes, the world still hazy with pain.  I blinked a couple times, helped by that cool cloth still blotting against my forehead.  Slowly, those blurs resolved themselves somewhat into shifting strands of red hair, floating above me.

“I,” I began, my voice immediately cracking with disuse as I opened my mouth.

Before I could say anything more, a finger, soft and warm, pressed itself against my lips to hold them shut.  “Hush,” murmured another voice, soft and feminine and filled with caring.  “You don’t need to speak.  Just take it easy.”

The easy choice would be to let my eyes close once again, to drift back into the peaceful embrace of oblivion.  But I forced myself to blink, and slowly, the blurry shapes in front of me began to swim into focus.

Up above me were wooden boards, a roof of some sort.  I realized that I was horizontal, and it felt like I was lying on some hard bed.  Those red hairs floating in the air above me were connected to a girl crouching beside me, one of her hands still dabbing at my forehead with the blessedly cool cloth.

Although it sent pain coursing through my body with each fraction of a degree, I turned my head slightly to the side, looking at her.

Danni, her hair an orange halo around her face, smiled down at me.  “I’m glad you’re still alive, Priest,” she said to me, as her eyes flicked over me.  “I was fairly convinced you were dead for a while!”

“I might still be,” I responded, my voice still rough and raspy.  I found that, although the pain persisted, I could block out enough to start to pull together my shattered thoughts.  I tried to think back to how I had ended up here, but it was all nothing but shards in darkness.  “What happened?”

For a moment, a cloud passed across the girl’s face.  “The train was falling into the water beneath the bridge,” she said, “and you threw me clear of the cars.  I think you were going to jump after me, but-“

I remembered, a flash of panic and horror.  “There was another car, the one behind ours, that hit before I could jump,” I recalled.

Danni nodded.  “Yes.  I saw you get thrown clear, but you were limp, like a ragdoll.  I had to dive down to pull you out before we were both buried under the debris.”

I tried to raise my head to look around.  “Now where are we?” I asked, but as I tried to lift my chest, another wave of cutting, stabbing pain forced me back down, and I gritted my teeth as I panted and fought to remain conscious.

Next to me, the girl leaned forward, putting her other hand on my chest and pressing me gently down.  “Will you stop it?” she scolded, sounding almost motherly as she ran her hands over me.  “You need to relax, Priest!  We’re safe, that’s what matters, and you have to recover.  You were on Death’s doorstep, knocking, before I pulled you back.”

My eyes rose up to the girl, and a sudden flush crept through Danni’s cheeks.  “Not that I cared about you or anything, Priest,” she murmured faintly, reaching up to push a few strands of that bright red hair back behind an ear.

“Jasper,” I said quietly.

“What?”

“My name.  It’s not Priest.  It’s Jasper.”  A little chill passed through me.  I had never before told anyone, much less one of my targets, my real name.

But above me, Danni stared at me for a moment, and then smiled.  “Jasper,” she repeated, running her finger lightly down my cheek.  I could feel the heat of her skin soaking into mine.  “Well, Jasper, focus on resting.  Try to relax.”

I started to open my mouth to say something, but the girl leaned down to shush me.  This time, however, instead of pressing a finger against my mouth, she met me with her lips.

The kiss was as light as a feather, but warm as the sun’s spring rays.  As Danni pulled away, I wanted to say something, but I fell back into peaceful, shady oblivion before I could form the words.

To be continued . . . 

Book 23 of 52: "Junkyard Planet" by Adam Minter

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When I picked up Junkyard Planet, a book with a bright cover showing a huge heap of garbage (see the image above), I was expecting to find a doom-and-gloom depressing story about how we are creating far too much garbage, our current lifestyle is unsustainable, and how our world is basically going to fall apart in the near future because of our current practices.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this book is nothing like what I expected.

Instead of focusing on doom and gloom, Junkyard Planet is written from the first-person observations of Adam Minter, a man who grew up in a junkyard (his father owned a local scrapyard in Minneapolis, Minnesota).  Adam talks about how the junk trade, once a small and local process, has been profoundly affected by the process of globalization.  It’s too expensive here in America to recycle anything – but all of that garbage has a ton of value overseas.

America shreds and stores its trash, from paper to old automobiles to thrown-away Christmas lights, and sends these bales of recycling over to China in returning shipping containers (that once brought Chinese-made goods to our shores).  In China, where the labor is cheap, these items are broken back down into their components, mostly metal – and then turned into new items to be sold to America.

The recycling trade is vast, extensive, cutthroat, and always balanced on a knife’s edge.  Even tiny shifts in the prices of commodities can make – or break – a trade.  And there’s always competition for the rich resources of America; Chinese traders will cut each other’s deals to the bone to be the one who walks away with a shipping container, often containing hundreds of thousands of dollars of raw metal.

The recycling trade is, by no means, clean.  Especially in developing countries, there’s an abysmal lack of safety regulations, and many people develop diseases or die early because of their exposure to heavy metals or breathing in of toxic fumes.  Yet still, these recycling jobs often pay more than anything else, by huge margins.

It takes nearly 1,000 tons of gold ore from a mine to harvest one ton of gold.  But that same one ton of gold can be harvested from merely 41 tons of cell phones and other electronic devices, where gold is used for circuit board connections.  There is huge wealth, almost all of which is extracted in one way or another.

It’s not a clean or environmentally friendly process – but nearly everything is recycled, in one form or another.

Time to read: About a week, in chapters here and there, mostly before bed.

Strange Loops

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I sat up with a gasp, a rush of adrenaline suddenly flooding through my veins as I clenched down at the stained table beneath me, staring around.

All around me, the bar looked just as it always did – shoddy, uncleaned, and with a smell all its own that slowly crept in and pervaded the nostrils.  I’d seen it a hundred times before, had spent more money here than I liked to think about.  I’d gotten drunk more times than I could count, had stumbled out across the uneven floor towards the sliding front door lock enough times to know every rut and pit in the synthstone that covered the ground underfoot.

I’d woken up here many times.

But none of them had ever felt like this.

I stood up, my legs erupting underneath me so violently that the cheap chair tumbled backwards onto the floor behind me.  My hands flew up to my chest, patting at the surface through my thin black shirt and all-weather Flex jacket, searching for a bullet hole that was no longer there.

No, I corrected myself.  Saying that the bullet hole was no longer there was wrong.

The hole wasn’t there… yet.

With a deep, shuddering breath, I forced myself to stop frantically grabbing at myself.  I was already attracting the curious attention of some of the other patrons – and most of them were the kind of folks that one didn’t want noticing you.  Not if you wanted to live for long, at least.

I stifled a hysterical chuckle at that thought.  Living long, hah!  That wasn’t going to be a worry for me, at least!

I turned and, feeling like my movements were almost robotic, I bent over and picked up the fallen chair.  I set it back up on its legs, but didn’t resume my seat.  Instead, moving like a drunken sailor who hadn’t yet acquired his space-legs, I stumbled over to the bar’s counter, looking up at the bartender behind it as he sneered down at me.

“What time is it?” I gasped out.

The bartender, a six-armed and six-legged Ifrit, rolled his eyes before answering – a movement tough to miss, considering that his eyes were on eight-inch stalks protruding from his lumpy little head.  “Eight past planet-set,” he grunted at me.  His voice sounded annoyed, even through the scratchy little crap-quality translator box around his neck.

“Eight past set,” I repeated, collapsing down onto the closest bar stool.  I closed my eyes and pressed both of my palms against the closed eyelids, trying to think back, to remember.

The sun had just been rising over the curve of the planet out the windows when the man had pulled the trigger, when I had felt a giant’s fist slam into my chest and drive me off my feet and down to the floor.

That meant that I had eleven, maybe twelve hours.

The bartender sidled a little closer to me, moving in a way that can only be performed with two extra sets of legs. “Something wrong, sir?” he asked, probably hoping that whatever I had wasn’t contagious across species.

I lowered my hands and opened my eyes, and the Ifrit took a half-sidle back from my thousand-yard stare.  “Twelve hours,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.  “I’m going to be shot in twelve hours.”

The Ifrit grunted.  “Sucks, man,” he offered.  “Give you a little privacy, then.”

The bartender stepped away, and I tried desperately to remember everything I knew about strange bullets…

Danni California, Part 16

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Continued from Part 15, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Most people, seeing the bridge ahead of their speeding train explode in a wave of fiery ignition, might have paused in shock, gasped, or wasted time on some other useless activity.

Those people weren’t trained Priests.

As soon as my eyes registered that burst of flame, I knew the train was going down.  I spun around, rising up from my seat as I shoved my gun roughly back into its holster and out of the way.  One arm shot out, wrapping into a fist around a handful of Danni’s shirt, and I hauled her up and out of the compartment.

A moment later, even despite the screeching of brakes as the train conductor frantically attempted to bring the massive vehicle to a halt, I felt us starting to tip.

The train was going over the edge.

Screams rang out from around the car as we started to tilt, obliquely pitching forward.  I did my best to stay on my feet as the train car shifted beneath my feet, and although I had to hold Danni up, she didn’t let out any noise.  When I shot a quick glance at her, I could see that her face was pale, but she wasn’t yet lost to panic.

Doing my best to stay in the middle of the pitching car, I hurried towards the rear of the car, the back door that led out.  “Come on,” I called to Danni, and she did her best to keep up with me.

But before we could reach that back door, the car suddenly gave a sickening lurch, and tilted until it was nearly straight vertical.

I felt my stomach clench.  We were dropping, in free fall off the track.

The drop only lasted a second or two, although it felt like longer to my adrenaline-fueled mind.  I kept one arm looped firmly around Danni as my other arm clenched onto one of the seats, holding up both of us as the car tumbled down towards the bottom of the bridge.

There had been water down there, I remembered, and a moment later we impacted with a combined splash and a screech of tearing, shearing metal.

Below us, I saw the front third of the train car immediately fold and crunch like an accordion, and several screaming passengers from that part of the car were immediately silenced.  As we hit the water, the car dropped back to somewhat near horizontal, and I didn’t waste time.  I stumbled forward, kicking out at the back door.

The door opened, thankfully, despite several deep kinks in the metal frame.  Turning back to Danni, I grabbed her with both hands and pulled her up to me.  The girl still didn’t look lost completely to panic, but I could see that her eyes were wide.

“Hope you can swim,” I said to her.  Before she could reply, I heaved her out of the train car, into the water rising up to swallow us.

I knew that more cars were still falling, and before I could leap from the drowning train myself, another car impacted next to us with a massive splash, knocking the floor beneath me askew.  I did my best to stay on my feet, but I felt myself slip as I pitched forward.

As I tumbled out of the train car after Danni, I saw the metal edge of the rear platform rushing up to meet my head.

A moment later, everything went black.

To be continued . . .

Book 22 of 52: "The Mirror Crack’d" by Agatha Christie

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Sometimes, I pick up a book because it has an amazing tagline or introduction, but I soon find that the author has failed to deliver on the potential of his or her plot premise.

For Agatha Christie’s novels, on the other hand, I find that the opposite is what tends to be true.  Take this mystery, for instance.  This is a Miss Marple story, and already I’m less than interested – it’s tough for me to see eye to eye with an elderly woman who has never even left her village, and tends to rely mostly on gossip to solve her murders.  And in this story, obviously written later in Christie’s career, Marple is getting up in years, to the point where she is nearly house-ridden, and must rely on a nurse for much help.

If that was all I knew about this story, I would have put it down.

But I kept reading – and I’m glad that I did.
Although the story begins with the elderly and confined Marple, we soon leave her behind as we follow an older, but still beautiful, actress.  She has just moved into the large mansion in the town, and throws a party – where one of the guests winds up poisoned!

Soon, however, it becomes clear that although the guest, a rather disagreeable middle-aged woman, was the one who ended up dead, the poison was actually meant for the actress herself!  Who has it out for this woman?  And will she end up dead before Marple (helped out by a much younger relative in the police) can pin down the killer?
I won’t give away more, but once again, I couldn’t guess the killer.  In fact, this time, I thought I had the right individual chosen – but then changed my mind.  If I had just stuck with my initial assumption, I would have finally gotten it right!  Damn you, Christie, and your slippery little mind!
Time to read: a little under 3 hours, as is typical for her stories.  I wonder how long it would take me if I sat down with all her books and refused to budge?

God and Lucifer switch places for a day….

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Sometimes, Mephistopheles (Mephisto for short) reflected, souls arrived down at the Gates of Hell claiming that they could talk their way out of things, that this was all just one big misunderstanding.  These people were known to have “silver tongues.”

But if these mere mortals had silver tongues, Mephisto’s boss, Lucifer, possessed the singular golden tongue.

Mephisto had seen his boss charm them all.  He could talk a priest into becoming a killer, could convince the most selfless saint to turn his back on his fellow man.  Once, Mephisto swore, he’d seen his boss charm the very wings off of a butterfly.

And yet, right now, Lucifer was speechless…

It was obvious.  Mephisto slowly edged backwards as he watched the fallen archangel, the Master of Hell, open and close his mouth without any sound coming out.

Briefly, Mephisto wondered what could be considered a “minimum safe distance.”  Technically, his boss’s wrath knew no bounds, but usually the flames didn’t make it more than a dozen feet or so before dissipating.  Still, the trusted devil lieutenant didn’t want to lose an eyebrow.

“Wha – what in the name of Hell did He do!?” Lucifer finally roared out, his bellow shaking the very foundations of the infernal plane.  “This can’t be!”

Lucifer turned and glared with twin black holes at Mephisto, who shuffled uncertainly forward a step.  The other lieutenants were hanging back, waiting for someone else to step up and take the fall.

“Boss, we really didn’t have much of a choice or anything,” Mephisto commented, already half-tensed to dodge Lucifer’s impending wrath.  “I mean, it’s Him.  What are we going to do, say no?”

For a moment, Lucifer kept up the million-watt glare, and Mephisto prepared himself for the worst.  Reforming this body was going to be a royal pain.  But just as he was resigning himself to atomization, the anger went out of Lucifer’s shoulders, and he slumped down.

“Man, that guy really just bugs me, you know?” he said, his voice more despairing than raging.  Kicking off his sandals, the fallen archangel padded out onto the grassy, frolicking meadows that now covered Hell.  He bent down and ripped a dandelion out of the ground, but three more wildflowers sprung up in its place.

“I mean, just look at this,” he went on, spreading an arm out.  “What in the world was He even thinking?”

Interested by the motion, a fluffy lamb ambled over, nibbling hopefully at the Master of Hell’s robe in hopes that it tasted like grass.  Lucifer fired a massive bolt of lightning into the lamb, but it just briefly made the creature’s wool stand on end before it decided that the robe wasn’t as tasty as the green grass underfoot.

Again, none of the other lieutenants spoke up, so Mephisto was left to fill the silence.  “He said that even the worst souls could be saved through peace and tranquility,” he offered, again cringing back from any outrage.

“Peace??  Tranquility??  That’s not what souls want!  They need to be burned in Hellfire and flayed by imps with pitchforks!” Lucifer shouted back, glaring at the whole pastoral scene around him.  “Has He not read any of their recent literature?  When did He go so soft?”

“Some time around the New Testament, I think,” Satan’s lieutenant offered, stepping forward, carefully lifting his foot to crush a daisy and grimacing with distaste.

Lucifer suddenly straightened up, frowning.  “What did he do with the imps, anyway?”

“Er… you just tried to electrify one of them, sir,” Mephisto informed him.

The Lord of Hell’s eyes went wide.  “He turned my demons and imps… into SHEEP?”

“Not just sheep, lord,” grunted Ba’al from behind Mephisto, oozing forward.  “Ducks, piglets, little frolicking puppies-“

Mephisto managed to just duck the fireball, but the giant slug form of Ba’al wasn’t so fast, and the grass was covered in a layer of slime.  “How dare he??” howled the Eternal Ruler of Damnation up at the black sky.

Time to steer the Master back to a more pleasant topic, Mephisto decided, reaching up and gingerly feeling the top of his head to make sure it hadn’t been burned away.  “Sir, at least you did something to Heaven, didn’t you?” he asked.

The devil lieutenant knew his master well.  Lucifer already had another fireball glowing in his hands, but the question made him stop and smile, the orb of energy dissipating.  “Oh, you bet,” he grinned, suddenly happy.  “That should at least put a bee in His bonnet!”

*

WHAT IN THE NAME OF ME HAS HE DONE?

“Lord, he said that it was allowed, since it’s a version of Heaven-“

A VERSION OF HEAVEN TO WHO?  BABIES?

“Erm, let me see…” The cherub ran a shaking chubby hand down his clipboard until he found the entry.  “Um, rednecks, Lord.”

THIS IS WHAT REDNECKS THINK THAT HEAVEN IS LIKE?  ALL OF THEM?

“Enough for him to make it stick, Lord.  Some of us argued-“

I DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW THEY STAY ON THOSE HIGH HEELS.  THEY’RE ALL SO… TOP-HEAVY.

“He filled… them… with helium, Lord.  Said it would make them more ‘perky’.”

AND THEY ARE ABLE TO BREATHE IN THOSE TIGHT SHIRTS?

“More or less.  Lucifer said that the breathing was the best part, rising and falling.  I’m not quite sure what he meant, Lord.”

UGH.  THAT DAMN ANGEL ALWAYS KNEW HOW TO MAKE ME ANNOYED.  AND THEY JUST SERVE THESE MEATS ALL DAY LONG?

“Chicken wings, sir.  And beer.  That’s right.”

QUITE TASTY, THOUGH.  IS THAT AN OWL ON THEIR SHIRTS, UNDER THE… CURVATURE?

“The slogan, sir.  Most people’s eyes don’t make it down that far.”

INDEED.

Danni California, Part 15

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Continued from Part 14, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Jenny still didn’t look fully convinced, but the young woman knew her place.  She closed her mouth, and although the man in black could tell that she was still full of unasked questions, she chose to let him continue with his story.

So, after giving her one last second to expel any outbursts, the man began speaking again.

*

I slid into the luxury car compartment across from Danni, making sure that she saw my pistol drawn and pressed against my thigh.  “One wrong move, and I’ll shoot you before you can even think of standing up,” I warned her.

The girl barely spared the gun a glance.  “I’m sure, Priest,” she replied back to me, tossing her hair back over her shoulder.  She was the picture of carefree.

I waited perhaps a second longer, and then opened my mouth again.  “What do you have to say?” I asked.

Danni pursed her lips for a minute before replying.  “It just seems a bit cliche, doesn’t it?” she finally remarked.  “I mean, I’m out here running around, living life, and you’re the plodding hunter, sent here to chase after me and put an end to my fun.”

“Fun?  You’re stealing people’s livelihoods!” I exploded back, surprising even myself with the intensity of my reply.  “Don’t you think this is the punishment you deserve?”

But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the girl was leaning forward, her eyes alive with blazing fire.  “I’m not stealing from anyone who doesn’t have enough to give it up!” she shot back, glaring at me.  “The bank replaces all the money – and besides, if we all weren’t dirt poor, I wouldn’t be bothering with theft in the first place!”

“We?” I repeated.

Danni waved an arm around her.  “What, you don’t think I’m hauling all my ill-gotten gains around with me, do you?” she asked, her tone making this remark seem cuttingly obvious.  “Where do you think it all goes?”

To my surprise, it was a question I hadn’t considered.  And as I tried to figure out the answer, feeling my brain squirm as it was forced down new and unexpected pathways, Danni leaned forward.  She reached out, and I jumped slightly as her fingers landed on my knees.  My gun was still resting along one thigh, but she ignored it completely.  Her eyes burned holes straight through mine, into my soul.

“There are people, thousands of people, starving and dying out there,” she murmured to me, her eyes not blinking or pulling away.  “There’s no one helping them.  No one except me.”

For a long moment, I was paralyzed.  I could do nothing but gaze into the bright, burning eyes of this young woman in front of me.

Finally, one of her hairs shifted a little, crossing her gaze, and the moment broke.  “That may be,” I retorted, staring back at her, “but this isn’t the way to help them.  You’re going to get caught, and they’ll be right back where they started.”

The girl didn’t back down.  “Caught by you?  Because this doesn’t seem so bad.”

I shook my head.  “After I missed, that first time, the Company sent others after you,” I told her.  “They’re probably hunting you, right now – I doubt they’re far behind me.”

“And what would they do?  Storm the train?” the girl asked.  Fortunately, she didn’t ignore the serious tone of my voice, and she glanced around.

Once again, I shook my head back and forth.  “Trust me – I’m selective compared to some of their methods.  They’re not above dynamiting the entire track, not caring about collateral damage.”

Leaning forward, I glanced out the window of the train car.  “There – see that bridge, up ahead?  A few sticks of dynamite at the base of that, and the whole train would go tumbling into the river below.  A few hundred deaths, but you’re the only death that matters.  That’s a likely choice.”

I caught Danni starting to open her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, a flash of orange lanced into my sight.

And just ahead of the train, that bridge I had pointed out was now disintegrating in a roar of flame…

To be continued . . . 

Book 21 of 52: "The Unmaking of the American Working Class" by Reg Theriault

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I’ve been reading a lot of books about the fall of the middle class.  Why?  Well, I suppose because I fit pretty well into the middle class, and if the class is disappearing, I want to make sure that I get squeezed out the top, not the bottom.

Most of the books I’ve been reading are outside looks into the fall of the middle class, presented by the elite authors and with plenty of statistics to back up their claims.  This book, however, is different – since it’s instead authored by a man who’s been in the working class all his life.
Reg Theriault grew up picking fruit (a “fruit tramp”, he terms himself), and then switched to working as a longshoreman – a job he held for several decades.  Instead of overwhelming the reader with statistics, this book is more a series of anecdotes and reflections on his time in the industry.

As I read the book, I felt as though I was sitting at a bar, listening to the man literally tell me these stories over a beer or two.  While they are sometimes loosely related, either to each other or to the larger theme, they do paint an overall picture of a shifting world, a world where mechanization and automation are reducing the need for manpower.

While all of these innovations are great for increasing per-worker productivity, they also mean that fewer workers are needed to reach the maximum level of productivity needed by the industry.  What happens to the other workers, then?

Theriault doesn’t have answers to that question.  But he does note that the times are changing, and that the working class will have to look for new niches if they hope to survive.  And really, they don’t have any other true choice.

Time to read: 2 hours.  Seriously, this one reads like an ambling tale from a gentleman at the bar.