Excerpt from my 1st Person retake of Shooter Vanished

I'm rewriting Shooter Vanished as a traditional noir 1st person from the perspective of my PI (yes yes I know I've rewritten this damn thing so many times...)  Here's a sample:


***


“Michael is as harmless as a cabbage, Rex. He couldn’t have shot Henry.”

The face in front of me, telling me about a guy as harmless as a cabbage, belonged to Jasmine
Palmer, a woman on whom I’d had my totally inappropriate sights ever since I first met her at a dinner
party a few years ago. She’d been the tall, dark-haired work of art hanging from the arm of a gangly
science fiction writer named Henry Garson, who’d married her, the lucky bastard, and deprived the rest
of the men of the world a shot at true bliss. Until he’d gotten himself murdered. At a book signing, of
all places.

I studied Jasmine, trying to get a sense of how convinced she was of Michael McDougall’s
innocence. From what I’d read on the Web about the murder, Michael’s fingerprints had been found on
the gun, which was pretty damning, even if nobody could figure out how he’d gotten out of the
bookstore undetected – while still leaving his gun behind.

“Why are you so convinced Michael’s innocent?”

Jasmine took a sip of the whiskey I’d poured her to help calm her nerves. She’d just seen her
husband murdered in front of her the day before. I was surprised she could get it together enough to
come see me in the first place.

“I just…I just know Michael didn’t do it. There was…I don’t know. Something strange happened.
I saw the killer just before he fired. It wasn’t Michael.” She paused. “I mean…maybe the guy looked like
Michael. But…” She was searching for something, a thread of memory, something to prove her point.
“The killer had a scar on the right side of his face. I know Michael doesn’t.”

“What did the scar look like?”

“Like a scar, Rex. A big jagged line, from just below his eye to his chin.” Jasmine’s face was a
wall. Maybe there was something to what she was saying. In any event, she needed my help, and I
could use the paycheck.

“Alright, I’m hired.” I gave Jasmine my fee information and buzzed my assistant Erick to have
him set up a retainer letter.

The formalities dealt with, Jasmine stood and extended a hand. I stood and shook it.

“Thanks, Rex. You’ve always been a good friend to me and Henry. I know you’ll figure this out.”

I wasn’t so sure. I escorted Jasmine out of my office into the small reception area. I snuck a
once-over at Jasmine’s retreating backside, those film noir curves tragically muted by a sweater and
loose slacks. I was immediately ashamed of myself. Erick saw me ogle her and shook his head at me. I
shrugged at him.

2

The phone rang as I was walking back through my office door. Erick answered it, “Rex Jackson,
PI.” He was a good assistant, a young guy in his thirties whose husband worked for the city. Reliable,
punctual, and intelligent, Erick had helped me untangle a number of cases over the years.

I sat back down behind my desk, settling into the soft leather chair I’d splurged on recently
because my forty five year old back wasn’t as spry as it used to be. My intercom buzzed, and Erick said,
“It’s that lady with the missing wedding ring again.”

“Take a message. Gotta think about this new case.”

Erick clicked off the line. I pulled open a complaining desk drawer and grabbed a fresh pack of
cigarettes. I lit one with the silver lighter given to me years ago by a client whose wife had been
cheating on him. I’d followed her for months and come up with no proof, because she’d been such a
damned sly fox. Eventually, she’d slipped up, and I’d gotten the photos, along with the silver lighter and
a big bonus from the client.

I knew I should quit smoking. It wasn’t easy chasing down a suspect with lungs full of tar. But
quitting was just…too much to face. I’d done it before, of course – dozens of times. I’d even tried
Nicotine Anonymous, but the touchy-feely pop spirituality of the thing just soured me. I wasn’t
powerless and I didn’t need a higher power.

I leaned back in my chair and thought about Jasmine’s case. On its surface, it looked like a
pretty standard frame up job, but how the killer pulled it off in front of dozens of witnesses at a
crowded book signing on the third floor of Powell’s, and then managed both to plant the weapon and
escape undetected – it was a good puzzle, and I was about to dump the pieces out of the box. That was
always the most exciting part.

And why Henry Garson? The guy was just a local science fiction author, known and loved by a
certain subset of geeks, but not even on the radar of the general public. I was a fan, and I kept reading
even after he dramatically and unrealistically shifted the tone, plot, and overall…well, everything about
his Guardians series after the third book. His murder had made the front page of the Oregonian, but
more because of the public brazenness of the act itself than because of who Henry was.

I hit the space bar and woke up my aging CRT monitor, which came to life with a desultory hum.
I swore that I would buy a new computer soon, one of the new ones with a touchscreen monitor and all
the sleekness, but that was such a secondary concern.

I pulled up Michael McDougall’s mug shot, and found myself looking at a bewildered mess who
had clearly just been roused out of bed by the cops. He was in his thirties, thinning blond hair, bit of a
beer gut. No scar on his face.

I needed to look at that security footage. I typed “Powell’s” into the search box and came up
with the number. I picked up my phone and dialed.

For those of you pining for the old political days of this blog, please go to my new thing here.

Flash fiction

I responded to this post on io9 with this story:

               It was called the Pimple, and Henry Ford hated it.  He hated it as much as he hated his name, tainted as it was with the stink of history – an irony if ever there was one, since his namesake had once referred to history as “bunk.”  Like his namesake, and the industrial society he had created, whoever created the Pimple died off long ago.

            Within the sphere of engineered atmosphere, winged creatures breathed the oxygen, shat in the flat oceans, and procreated on updrafts high in the troposphere, swooping around the vast columns of frozen DNA in a paroxysmal dance.

            Henry dug his boot spike into the ice and hoisted himself up the rope to the midsection of the column.  One of the winged things flew close to him and shrieked.  Henry cursed and almost slipped.  He kept his eye firmly glued to the outcropping about twenty crons up, where something new glinted in the green light diffused into the Pimple by the sun and the illuminated planet below.  

            A strand came loose and tumbled to the heavy surface of the water, breaking Henry’s boot loose of its mooring.  A thick splash extruded upward and subsided into ripples.  Henry gripped the rope, praying that the electrobiner would hold fast against the unstable surface of the ice.

The columns were made up of supercooled conglomerations of DNA, ejecta from a long-dead experiment the parameters of which Henry and his fellow genetic anthropologists were just now starting to understand.  The connection of the ice to the bigger question of why the ancient scientists had modified a half Dyson sphere into a self-sufficient ecodome that covered a quarter of the planet - that was the question nobody yet could answer.

Henry hated the Pimple because he knew that the technology required to create such an engineering feat would never again be achieved.  He wanted to go back in time, be there when the Pimple was being developed, watch the scientists at work.  Sure, they had the video archives, remnants from the global computer network that had gone dark after the Flare had fried the world’s electricity - but it had taken them years to reverse engineer the technology necessary to watch the videos, and it had taken the linguists another decade to translate the old languages.  

Henry jabbed his boot spike into the DNA ice again and scrabbled for purchase.  He’d lost some ground, but he gritted his teeth and soon found himself at eye level with the new thing.  The giant DNA icicles were not dead - Henry and his team often found shards of new life clinging to them, created by the DNA - new genetic combinations, brought to life by some unknown process.  Most of them died after only a few moments, and Henry’s team would find only the husks, but sometimes, they’d come across something alive, something new, and they’d have a chance to study it as the DNA took root and began to grow.  

Henry studied the new thing.   A cold eye looked at him from its surface - clearly alive, with a sharp glint that could be the spark of intelligence.  Plumes of steam emanated from a slit along the creature’s left side.  It looked like breathing.

Henry changed his grip so that he could get a closer look.  The slit along its left side had what looked like lips, and as Henry looked, he thought he saw teeth.  

A low rattle started to emanate from the creature’s midsection.  It raised itself up on six spiny legs and lunged for Henry’s face.  Henry shouted and released his grip on the icicle.  He shielded his face as he fell to the end of the rope with a jerk.  The electrobiner held tight.

At that moment, the new thing jumped from its perch on the icicle and dove toward Henry.  Henry swung around to avoid the creature.  With one hand, he scrambled for the laser cutter on his belt.  The thing flew around him on thin wings made of pure ice, the gash on its side open and showing a pincushion of teeth.  Henry aimed the cutter at the creature and pressed the ignition, sending a precision bolt of plasma at the creature.  The laser burned a hole in one of the creature’s wings, and it began to spiral toward the ground, a grotesque motion that imitated the structure of the DNA icicles from which it had been born.  

After using the rope to lower himself down to the ground, Henry walked to the creature’s side.  He bent over to examine it.  It was clear the team needed to know that the new things were becoming sentient.  

The Republican Party, the National Front, and the BNP

Yeah, this is my first post in months, and it's politics.  Not only that, it's a link to a thing I posted on another site, which is in itself a conglomeration of several posts I made on Facebook.

Still, read on:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/25/1113438/-The-Republican-Party-the-Front-National-and-the-BNP

Another excerpt from Shooter Vanished

Just to whet your appetite. 

Jasmine had her keys in one hand and an armful of groceries in the other.  She pushed the button on her clicker.  Her car lights flashed and the door locks clicked open. 

"Jasmine…"  The voice was strained, and came from the shadows on her left.  She turned toward the noise, her thumb moving to the panic button. 

"Jasmine…"  A shape began to emerge from the darkness.  As the light illuminated it, Jasmine realized, with horror, that she was staring at her husband's killer.  She dropped both the groceries and the keys on the ground, and reached in her purse.  She pulled out a can of pepper spray, and stared the man down. 

He looked bad - his eyes were bloodshot, he was pale, there were angry circles under his eyes.  His clothes were disheveled and soaked through, and his hair was a wet, scraggly mess.

"Jasmine…"

"Ok, you know my name.  Do you also know what this is?  It'll hurt a lot if I spray it at you.  Also, I'm about to call the cops."

"But…Jasmine…"

"Ok, this is getting on my nerves."  She screamed, drawing the attention of a nearby grocery store employee, a gangly youth with wide eyes and pimples, who ran to her aid.  "Call the cops," she instructed.  The kid sprinted away.

"Alright you son of a bitch," she said, reaching a decision.  She didn't want her husband's killer getting away again.  She lunged forward and tackled him, bringing him down hard on the asphalt.

"Jasmine…" he croaked.  "I love you…"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Don't you remember me?  Jasmine…"

"You kill my husband, then you assault me in a parking lot?  Not the best way to get on a girl's good side."

The store clerk returned, huffing.  "The cops are on their way." 

"Good."  She had pinned the killer underneath her, although he didn't seem in too much of a hurry to escape.

There was a bright flash, and Jasmine suddenly found she had nothing to pin down.  The asphalt beneath her was empty, and there was no sign of her husband's killer.