Carbon 250 - Chapter 19

Poster Girl

world is cold the bold men take action

have to react or get blown into fractions

ten years old it's something to see

another kid my age drugged under a jeep

This chapter begins with Eve standing in her apartment in her underwear.  Yeah, I know.  I should do this more often.  Anyway, she was holding heels in one hand and a red dress in the other.  They were supposed to go salsa dancing tonight, her and Dave, and like 20 of his friends she didn't even know he had.  Her riding suit was on the bed.  She was looking at it, wondering out this was all going to work.  She broke down and used a backpack. They rode together.  They could have just taken Dave's car, but he wanted to ride.  The argument ended abruptly when he asked her if she was scared.  Also, his car was in the shop for some reason.

The ride to Little Cuba was uneventful.  As Dave promised, there was a coat check and a ton of room for changing in the ladies room (how did he know that?) but  to get there they had to thread through a throng of people all spinning and twisting their bodies to latin dance music, holding their helmets in front or behind them.  Eve turned heads.

Eve had a good time.  Dave had taught her some steps on her hardwood floor at home.  It had not been the dancing around to Frank Sinatra that she had imagined, or even the dancing in her underwear to Johnny Cash.  It was even a bit awkward.  At the club, though, it all came together for her.  Eve couldn't understand the words but that music ignited something within her, a passion that  could only be unleashed by furious spins.

She was also getting jealous though.  Dave was not the kind of guy that normally attracted girls to him, but he appeared to know all off them and they were practically lining up to dance with him.  He got tired quickly and sat down next to her.

"So have you guys heard about the new rent-a-cops?" asked Barry.  Barry was one of Dave's few guy friends.  He was pretty big, but not really fat.  Just large sized.

"Oh you mean the mercenaries?" said Dave.

"Are they really?" asked Eve.

"Yeh.  Same company that shot up some intersection in Iraq and killed like a hundred people for no reason."

"Yeah...ooh gotta go," said Barry.  He bounded off to the dance floor to catch a girl he'd been eyeing all night.

"Yeh apparently they are supplementing the police or some bullshit.  Ever since that biker smashed that guys windshield, some soccer mom has been going on about safety."

"Her son was hospitalized by a biker."

"Probably deserved it."

"And where do you get off calling a woman a soccer mom just because shes-"

"She is literally a soccer mon.  She drives a minivan.  She takes her kids to little soccer games in that minivan.  And she was only chosen to run for mayor because they need a woman."

Eve was about to come back with a smart reply, but something distracted Dave and she followed his gaze.  There, on the dance floor, the girl Barry was dancing with was trying to extricate herself from his arms, but was unable, because he had fallen asleep and was very heavy.  Other people were just starting to notice.  Dave jumped up and hurried to the dance floor.  He patted Barry on the back, then flicked his ear.  Barry woke up.  The girl smiled at them and was gone.

"Dude.  Vodka red bull."

"I hate red bull," said Barry.

"Yeah, well you need it."

After that, they didn't get a chance to talk much.  Eve was swarmed by men wanting to dance with her and Dave had no shortage of dance partners himself.  Barry spent a lot of time sitting, then headed for the other side of the dance floor, where hopefully no one had noticed him fall asleep.  Truth be told, it was a good night.

Eve rode home with a smile.

Then she got pulled over.  She had the license plate flipper, but she couldn't outrun the black SUV behind her, not on the highway.  The pulled over.  The man that stepped out was not a cop, or really even a man.  He was a kid wearing a Greywater Security jacket.  She couldn't read his body language at first but his intentions became clear a half hour later when he refused to let her leave until she promised to go out on a date with him.  Eve had a host of different tactics, including fake numbers, fake boyfriends, sudden illnesses, etc.  This jerk wasn't going to get a fake number.  They started arguing.  She screamed at him.  It did no good.  Then things got interesting.

Eve got sick of it and pulled out her phone.  She started dialing 911.  The jackass told her to put her phone away, and reached for his taser.  Eve lowered the phone, but pressed Send as she did so.  The jackass started resuming his twisted mating call but was interupted by the all too clear voice of a dispatcher saying "911, what is your emergency?"

"I need help!"  Eve raised the phone and yelled so the mic would pick up her voice.  Jackass lunged for the phone, but Eve held it away from him.  He knocked her and her bike over.  Eve thanked the angels she had a brick phone, and slid hers along the rough pavement of the shoulder, the call still going.  She prayed it was getting traced.  It was.  Jackass ran for the phone.  Eve's right led was pinned under her bike, but she swung her left and tripped him.  Fortunately, that moved pissed him off and made him forget her phone.  Unfortunately, he came after her.

Jackass dragged her out from under her bike and pulled her up.  She kneed him in the balls, hard.  Eve wished, very much, that she had her sword, and decided she didn't really want to leave home without it again, not with all these punk ass bitches trying to get a piece of her action.  They strugged.  Jackass was not used to non-lethally subduing a victim, and Eve had no combat training whatsoever.  He tried to use the taser on her.  She managed to knock it away, but he still won in the end.  He flipped her over and pressed her neck and face into the ground with his knee while he cuffed her.  That's how the real cops found them.

Two single seat (one cop inside) cruisers pulled up.  The cops hauled Jackass to his feet and cuffed him.  They stood her bike up but kept her in cuffs as well.  They took them both away in separate cars, leaving Eve's bike on the side of the highway.

Eve was in a tiny interogation room when the police chief walked in.  She asked him to make a phone call but he told he she wasn't under arrest.  "I understand your story is that he pulled you over without a reason, and refused to let you leave because he wanted a date?"

Eve nodded.

The captain leaned back in his chair.  "I've been around long enough to tell when someone's lying to me."  He paused.  Eve didn't say anything.  "And that jackass is a fucking liar.  I've had my hands full for weeks trying to deal with these assholes, but the chief has enormous pressure coming down on him to make this 'program' work."  The captain slid her phone across the table.  "You did the right thing calling us."

"So that's it?  Can I go now?"

"Yes.  Be advised that I am going to leak this story to the press, and that will include your name.  You may not like that, but that bitch Pennington has been railroading us with this shit ever since she took office."

"What keeps them from coming after me?"

"They won't.  If an incident like this happens again, the Chief will snap and he'll have us arrest them all."  It wasn't completely true, but it sure was reassuring.

Eve called Dave.  He showed up with his lawyer friend, who was unecessary but did ask if she wanted to sue.  Eve declined.  They drove her back to her bike, which thankfully had not been stolen.  She gave Dave a kiss and rode home to collapse into bed.

Elsewhere, many people watched the news that night.  Dave, from his apartment.  Biff, from a bar.  The story was a disaster for Maggie Pennington.  She had spent a large part of her campain money parading hostpital pictures of her son in front of everyone to see, and that had gotten her a lot of support, but when the news showed a picture of the now arrested Greywater Security personell next to a stunningly beautiful biker chick that had apparently fought back, the people of the city stoppd caring about Orwell Pennington and the traffic incident with too many unexplained details.  If Eve had simply been accosted by the mercenary, it would have been bad enough.  People would have been filled with righteous indignation, and geeks everywhere would write mean things in their blogs.  It was the details of Eve defending herself that made people feel like they weren't hopeless, like there was something they could do about it, and it was the details about her calling the real police that  blasted the legitimacy of Pennington's new safety program out of the water.

Someone, somewhere, made a homemade bumper sticker that said "I only pull over for real cops."  Dave saw this bumper sticker, and ordered 7,000 copies.  He did not ship them to himself.  He shipped them to random addresses based on a poisson distribution of the statistical breakdown of census records, in an attempt to get those bumper stickers in the hands of as many twenty-somethings as possible.  His statistical model was way off, but nonetheless those bumper stickers found there way onto plenty of cars.

Biff had his own plan.  The first step was to break into Greywater Security's motor pool and write down all of the license plate numbers.

Three days later Maggie arrived at her office and found an old newspaper clipping on her desk.  Most of the article was missing, but she knew what it said.  It was the article describing Christine Miller's death.  Someone knew.

Accustomed to Failure

Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky.  Try to...

I met a girl tonight.  Sort of.  Her name is 6a8efbe7677f555bb9accb43745d2a29.  I am willing to admit that md5sum is not the best method of obscuring people's identities, even worse than the silly names.  Let me put it this way:  she had the same name as Libby's little sister.  Most of you probably don't know Libby, but you can still figure it out.

I was at Century Ballroom with 'bb9 and two of the girls that I meant in Century's classes before I ran afoul of their mandatory gayness policy.  I was having...slightly better than an ok time.  Then, this girl comes up and does that thing where they just stand near you hoping you ask them.  I've gotten burned by it before, but now that I know about it, I knew what to do.  The song was a bachatta.  Bachatta, for the purpose of this post, is...well just think of it as the latin dancing equivalent of that lame hug dance that we all did in middle school.  Except is it not lame, but very very sexy.

So girl was hot.  Her face was delicious, the kind that draws my eyes in and makes me wish I could stare all day.  In fact, that's what I'll call her:  Delicious Face.  Excellent red dress, the kind where the fabric does this thing where it comes up into triangle shapes over the girls boobs--triangle shapes because they are tapering down into thin strap things.  In my opinion, that dress usually looks stupid, but she pulled it off.  Man, and I think it was sparkly, too.  Might have just been in my head.  She was like, radiating.

Anyway, she seemed interested in dancing close enough to tell if I thought she was attractive, but I elected to keep the peace because I very much did think she was attractive, and doing the sexy hip popping thing* in Bachatta is hard enough without trying to rub your crotch against someone with a lower center of gravity while moving sideways..  We talked some.  I have enough trouble thinking of things to say to hot girls, and we were dancing on top of that.  She said she comes dancing once a month.  This will become important later when you find out that this story ends the same way all the others do.

After our dance, we parted amicably (read: we both had a good time and aren't running back to our friends to say how much the other person sucked).  I wanted this girl.  My hormones told me there was a 90% chance I'd be willing to trade rings with her someday.  I realize that sounds creepy and premature, but I have found you can tell a lot about a girl from the way she looks, the way she walks, the way she dances, the way she talks, and the way she plays Unreal Tournament Classic.  I had 4 out of 5 right there.

Anyway, my plan was to wait a song or two so I didn't look pathetic and then ask her to dance to a salsa song.  Meanwhile the DJ took a break in the music either for some performance I didn't care about, or to get a couple people out there for birthday dances**.  Every time there is a guy out there celebrating his birthday at Century Ballrom specifically, some other guy joins the line of girls and dances with him--perhaps just because of , or perhaps to make the girls scream, which always happens.  Idk.  The guy I saw tonight didn't look too happy, especially since his challenger decided to make the birthday boy do the girls part, which he clearly did not know at all.  Despite my aversion to playing any part of the birthday dance scenario, I admit I have fantasized about being the birthday boy, and having some jackass break through the line of girls, and how I would scowl at him just right, do one cross body lead, and whip him forcefully into a powerful freestyle (meaning we stop touching completely) turn that would send him away long enough for me to grab a girl and start having a good time again.  Don't mess with me like that;  I am a dance ninja.  Tonight, though, after reflecting on it some more I decided everyone else in the world would probably rather me just grow up and be a good sport about it (i.e. pretend to enjoy it), and since the girls seems to love it so much, I guess that's what I'll do.  Maybe.  If some guy tries to make me dance the girl part, though, he's going to learn the first five rules of Dance Club.

I digress.

After whatever stupid thing they cleared the dance floor for, there was more dancing, and then I had the problem where every time I tried to go ask Delicious if she wanted to dance, someone got to her first.  I decided to wait it out and drink a bottle of water, which took longer than I thought, and ended up wasting an entire song standing three feet away from this girl, trying to drink this water as fast as I could.  I later realized that blowing an opportunity to dance with a hot girl in order to not waste the last third of a $1.50 bottle of water is one of the dumbest mistakes I've ever made.

I finish drinking my water and some other guy asks her to dance.  I was pretty nervous anyway about talking or dancing with her, and most of me was relieved that I'd get out of it for another song.  But then another guy asked her to dance.  And another.  And then many more anothers.  It turns out, this girl is a regular, and despite only going like 1 a month, every guy that is way better than me knows her and wants to dance with her.

My friends had left, except for 'bb9, who I am incapable of dancing with because she dances something that I assume is genuine Cuban salsa, and I dance LA-style.  The number of girls was dwindling.  I wasn't finding anyone to dance with.  I saw that Delicious was free.  She wasn't standing on the edge of the dance floor, and she was back where you sit down, but she wasn't sitting yet;  she looked like she wanted to dance.  I was on the other side of this enormous ballroom, at the stage, where I was when we danced that bachatta.  I walked around to ask Delicious to dance.  Hawaiian shirt guy got there first.

Hawaiian shirt guy is more than a regular;  he's a fixture.  He's always there, skulking around the dance floor asking girls to dance.  First of all, he is wayyyy past 30--possibly 40s or 50s, I have no clue.  Also, he is skinny.  He often wears a hawaiian shirt but didn't tonight.  He is basically bald where it counts, but has chosen to grow out the ring of hair that remains, unusually long, and occasionally does a comb over.  He's shy.  He's nice.  I am not exaggerating when I say he does the nice thing from nice guys finish last.  I never see him standing and flirting with girls; he just always walks up and offers his hand in a really gentle manner and asks them to dance.  It is easy to tell that he goes dancing all the time, but in all that time he hasn't joined any of the little social cliques that form.  I can't remember ever seeing a girl's face light up when she sees him, or a girl running up to him for a dance, or anything to suggest he's formed a meaningful connection with anyone.  His algorithm for finding girls to dance appears to be just like mine.  For this reason I am honestly afraid that I will end up like him someday.

Anyway, so thats who hawaiian shirt guy is.  I was still 20 feet away when he got to her first and asked her to dance.  She said no, or shook her head, and then said why--girls love to do that, add little reasons like "I'm tired," etc.  Those little reasons are helpful, because if they choose, they can give you a clue that they really are tired or something, and they aren't just saying no because they think you are creepy / always have a hardon / are high / hate dancing with you.

You might think this girl, Delicious, was still available, after having turned down hawaiian shirt guy, but in the salsa scene it is not so obvious.  There is this ettiquete thing, for better or worse, where a lot of people consider it rude to say no, and super-rude if you say no to someone, and then yes to someone else.  I can understand that--it kind of crushes a guys confidence when some girls like "no, I'm tired," and then two seconds later some other dude walks by and she jumps up to dance with him.  One of my favorite teachers, Sonia (or Sonya?), always said if you say no to anyone you should sit the rest of the dance out.  The reason I'm telling you all this, is because it means that if you are about to ask a girl to dance, and you see her say no to someone else, she is almost certainly going to say no to you, either for whatever real reason she had for saying no, or because she doesn't want to appear rude, or maybe she's really picky and wants to blow you off for the same reason she said no to him.

So I was fucked.  I looked around.  The crowd was thinning out, and there were like no other girls standing around that I could find.  I didn't want to spend another song standing near but not dancing with an extremely attractive girl, and I was tired, and I have to buy krispy kreme donuts tomorrow, so I just left.

In retrospect, maybe I could have sidled up to her and tried to talk to her about...something.


In other news, tomorrow I have to buy donuts.  We are possibly turning off this old piece of software that we all hate.  I realized that on such an occasion it might be appropriate to buy donuts.  One of the only conversations I've had with the hot girl at work was about where Krispy Kreme was located.  So, deliberately not using google maps, I walked over to her office (she is some kind of project [manager] ninja) and asked her were that krispy kreme place was.  She pulled it up on google maps for me.  I left.  Not a brilliant move, no, but kudos to me for getting up and crossing the line out of my comfort zone when I thought about it.  I don't usually move that fast.

So, anyway, now I'm buying donuts tomorrow.  I'm going to walk in with three boxes and tell my team I that I was under the impression that we might be turning off so I brought some donuts.  Best case scenario, there is a lot left over, so I send one of those really annoying emails that people send when they have extra food at their desk, but the donuts will be a my desk this time, and hopefully one of the vultures will be this girl.  Might be a way to see if she's interested.  I mean, she did say hi enthusiastically when I popped over to her office.  Actually, best case scenario, she'd come by at like 7:30 when everyone else left, and would take the last donut and sit on my desk and put her foot on m--well, nevermind.  I've been told I'm not supposed to even think about what I really want.  Gotta play the game.  Or something.  Yeah, I gotta get up extra early to buy donuts.  Glad I stayed up late making sure everyone knows how lame my life still is.

Oh...yeah, I was going to write something about how I'm so used to failing with meeting girls that I didn't even know what to say...I can't remember.  It was probably not a very interesting detail anyway.




*the secret to the hip pop, as one girl told me, is to just completely straighten the leg below the hip you want to pop; it pushes your hip up naturally.  I can't claim that is the correct way to do it, but it seems to work great

**birthday dance:  when its your birthday, and you know the people running the club, they clear the dance floor and you spend a song surrounded by people of the opposite gender and you spend the whole song dancing with them while everyone watched.

Carbon 250 - Chapter 18

Sparks

I won't pull the trigger

just to see you die

no remedy to make me come alive

I'm a ticking time bomb

no fuse just guts and gore

The time was twenty minutes to sunset.  The air, unusually warm for that time of year.  The location:  a quarter mile south of the bridge where the anonymous but violent motorcyclist, had, technically in self defense (well maybe thats a stretch) cracked the rear windshield of a car with a chain.  The players:  a tough guy named Frankie, a fat guy named Orville, and a road ninja named Biff.

Orville was at the wheel.  Frankie was in the right seat.  Orville did not like Frankie.  Orville thought Frankie was a hard ass that wouldn't stop talking about his tour in Iraq.  Frankie thought Orville was a fat pussy.  They were both right.  They hated each other.  They loved the salary.  They kept the peace, at least the best they could.  They only had to last to the end of phase one, when they would get new partners in the full roll out.  Frankie wouldn't wait for it;  that's when they would get firearm authorization.

"Would you stop stuffing your face and keep your eyes on the road?"  said Frankie.  It wasn't really a request.  Frankie was busy craning his neck trying to see a motorcyclist that was just barely in his mirror, and every time Orville took a bite the car swerved just a tiny bit, and the rider went completely out of the view.

"I'm fine.  Geez," whined Orville.

Outside, Biff was analyzing the car.  Goverment plates.  Strange.  The SUV-type minivan was mostly black, but had official looking markings that strangely did not identify the vehicle.  Biff pulled a phone out with his left hand to take a picture.

Inside the car, Orville began freaking out.  "Oh fuck.  Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck FUCK!!!!!"

Frankie's head swung left in an instant.  There was no blood, no trauma or oncoming vehicles, no missiles or spaceships or anything else that would warrant such a reaction.  The kid was fine.

Orville was not fine.  "Kill it!"  There was a spider the size of Texas coming down on a thin strand of icky web.  Where did that get this truck?  Really where?  In the back of an icky salvage yard?  In a spiders next.  Orville's hands turned red as he squeezed the life out of the steering wheel.  Then his knuckles turned white.  The spider was coming down fast, descending on its helpless prey.  "Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it...."  Orville was starting to hyperventilate.

Frankie finally saw the spider and almost lost it.  "Are you kidding me?"  The spider was smaller than his thumb.  He took one look at the kid, though, and realized it was serious.  The kid was going to have a conniption.  Frankie reached for the spider.

The spider got within three inches of Orville's hand.  Orville jerked the wheel, to his hand out of reach.  He jerked it a little too hard.

Thats what she said.

Outside the car, Biff had one picture of the plate and was trying to get one of the side markings.  He raise his phone up, and pressed the button.  Suddenly the SUV-type minivan swerved right, clipping Biff's front tire.  The bike went down and Biff went forward in a high side fall.  Those are the worst kind.

The SUV crossed the lane, the shoulder and layed into the guardrail in a [small] shower of sparks.  Then the brake lights came on, and it slid to a stop on locked wheels.

Biff's world was a blur for a moment, with flying, tumbling, rolling, sliding.  He came to rest.  Many things hurt.  He rolled to his back.  Nothing felt broken--fuck!  he was in the lane.  Biff scrambled to get a look at the lane.  Cars were there, but they had slowed and started changing lanes.  He inventoried himself.  No broken bones.  Whatever he was wearing was damn good armor;  he'd have to buy more of that brand.

Inside the SUV, Frankie was screaming at Orville.  Orville, with one twinkie, had nearly undone the entire operation.  If anyone reported this, they were fucked with their pants down.  Frankie couldn't get out on his side.  "Move!"  He kicked Orville until Orville got the door out and spilled onto the ground.  Frankie was right behind him, and cleared his fat partner with a quick leap.  He looked back, and his hopes were crushed.  First of all the motorcyclist was covered head to toe in thick armor;  he appeared to be unharmed.  Worse, the motorcyclist slowly rose to his feet.  Maybe not slowly, maybe Frankie's mind was racing and he saw in slow motion.  He felt a familiar chill run up his back, the one cause by seeing someone point an AK in his direction: the rider reached up under his chin, grabbed the quick released strap, yanked it.  Then he reached up with both hands, pushing the black full face helmet up and off his face.  Frankie saw his chin, mouth and nose.  His eyes...oh shit...forehead...hair.  One hand closed over the edge of the helmet, finger by finger.  The man's arm swung down, throwing the helmet into the ground, where it smashed and bounced.  Frankie looked down an Orville, who was still getting to his feet, and then at the rider.  The rider stared back.

Biff threw his helmet onto the ground.  It was useless anyway, except as a weapon, but he had a better one on the bike.  He stared at the morons who had just piled out of the minivan.  One guy looked tough.  The other was a...what were these clowns?  Biff looked at his bike.  First things first.  Control your anger.  Get the girl back on her tires so she'll start later.  Biff got her to the side of the road.  This one had a carburetor.  The fairing was was a mess but the frame didn't collapse when he stood it up.  That was a good sign.  Bill deployed the kick stand and turned the key off.  The forks looked ok.  The tires still had air.  Nothing was leaking, yet.  He'd wait a few minutes and try the starter.

"On your feet, kid.  We gotta nip this in the bud."  Frankie led the pair back to the motorcyclist, who was attending to his bike.  On the way, Frankie found a cell phone.  Frankie showed Orville.  Orville's face lit up.  It should have--that phone just saved their asses.  "Excuse me!" Frankie called out when they were a couple meters away.  "Is this your cell phone?"

The rider stopped tinkering with his bike for a second and looked at them, but didn't answer.

"Sir I'm going to need you to step away from the vehicle."

"Do you clowns have badge numbers?" asked Biff.

"No we-"

"Then I'm going to need you to fuck off and die," Biff answered.  They were standing on either side of him, muscling up, even the fat one.  Biff stared at the one that looked like a war vet.

Frankie pulled out the taser.  It had a ten foot range.  He was three feet from Biff.  Biff's chest was all thrust out and stuff, but his arms were dangling at his sides, hands empty.  Frankie aimed the taser at the middle of Biff's chest.  He didn't want any mistakes.  "I'm not going to ask again.  Step away from the bike.  Put your hands behind your head."  Frankie used his other hand to check his back pocket, then looked at Orville.  "You got the handcuffs?"

"Real cops don't like it when assholes run people over," said Biff slowly.  He was still staring at Frankie.  Frankie didn't like it.

"Hey!  Sir.  You were using a cell phone," said Orville.  "That's not allowed.  Its an arrestable offense."  Bullshit.  It was not, and they had no leg to stand on.  Then Orville gave Biff a line he couldn't resist:  "Think of it as a citizens arrest."  Then, Orville saw the socket wrench.  He saw it as Biff turned.  It was the kind you keep in a car for changing a flat.  It was black had a 90 degree curve.  There was a socket on the short end, and a crowbar tip on the other.  It wasn't even in his hand; it looked like the tip was caught in his sleeve.  The movement distracted them from seeing the wrench from sliding into his hand.  This was no ordinary socket wrench.  It was made of hardened steel, and the crowbar tip was sharpened like a knife.  In fact, since its creation it had not fastened nor unfastened a single bolt.

Biff looked back at Orville, "Very well, citizen."

Biff's right arm flashed, swinging the crowbar with his wrist as well as his arm.  It caught Frankie off guard.  Frankie fell to the ground.  Biff swung back around, at the hips, bringing all of his available body weight across to bear on Orville's head.  Orville's head exploded in pain.  He collapsed to the ground, unable to do anything other than wallow in red and stars.

Frankie had been hit by far worse things than tools.  He was back up on one knee and firing the taser while Biff was still turning to face him.  The two metal leads shot out of the device with enough force to shatter an eyeball, and into Biffs midsection.  Biff owned a shirt with a wire mesh intended to safetly divert the electricity.  He wasn't wearing it.  He didn't need it.  The leads didn't even pierce his body armor.  Biff threw wrench end over end to Frankie's face.  It broke Frankies nose.

Biff wasted no time in obtaining the taser and returning the favor.  Frankie was not wearing a wire mesh shirt, or any kind of body armor.  The shock went directly to his flesh.  Biff used another charge.  Then, another.  He pulled an ID clip from Frankie's shirt.  Greywater Security.  They were fucking mercenaries.  Biff shocked the man again.  He glanced back at Orville, and then fired yet another surge of electricity through Frankie.  Frankie spat blood afterwards.  Biff held onto the taser, continuing to fire more charges as he walked back to his bike and tried the starter.  It wasn't working.  Biff briefly wondered is tasing the man was such a good idea since he might need the charge, but then his bike started.  Biff looked down at Frankie.  Frankie wasn't moving.  Biff ripped the leads out, and volleyed the taser over the highway, down into the lanes on the other side of the median.  Time was of the essence:  the sun had not set and people could see him.  A true road ninja does not linger.

Biff ran to the SUV-style minivan and found it with the key on and still running.  Biff did not want to sacrifice the weapon that had just saved him from a [more] bloody battle, so instead he tore off the door of the glove compartment and used that to  wedge the gas pedal to the flow, giving the wheel a bit of a twist as he fell back out.  The minivan lurched into traffic and caused an immediate pileup.  Biff ran back, tossed the helmet away from the road, grabbed the cell phone, hopped on his bike, gunned the engine, spun around, and took off, splitting the lanes against the flow of traffic, going back the way he'd came.  The real police would find small to medium pileup with the mercenaries' minivan in the center.

Orville was rushed to the hospital with a skull fracture, but would not remember much about the incident, except for the parts with the spider that he needed to lie about anyway.  Maggie Pennington was beside herself with worry.  Her people were given the news and started working on a way to turn this to her benefit.

Frankie was still breathing when Biff rolled out, but expired before help arrived.  A representative of the taser company, Marksen Lot, crossed out "taser" on the death report and replaced it with "excited delerium."



/* 49,698 words including chapter titles.  and...there is a lot left to write... */

Carbon 250 - Chapter 17

A Spider, a Cyberpunk, and Softcore Porn

I like your pants around your feet

and I like the dirt that's on your knees

and I like the way you still say please

while you're looking up at me

you're like my favorite damn disease

"That one.  That one that one that one that one!"  Tech #1 bounced in his chair with excitement.

"Got it."  Tech #2 pressed a button on his keyboard.  The screen in front of showed a high end SUV enter an intersection just as the light was turning yellow.  When Tech #2 pressed the spacebar, the light turned immediately from yellow to red, while the SUV was still in the intersection.  An unelected advisory committee to the state council, after being given a directive to reduce the duration of the yellow lights without leaving a paper trail, had already reduced the yellow lights down to 1 second.  With Tech #2's timely intervention however, the light have been on for no more than 0.56 seconds.

"Do you think we can get away with a $500 ticket?" asked Tech #1.  Four hundred dollars meant a $40 "commission."

"No.  We're not allowed to give out the five hundreds any more.  Write him up for a $400.  I'm switching to another light before lunch runs out," said Tech #2.

The next light was down near the waterfront between The Mark and Trench City.  The light had 2 seconds left on it.  Some kind of black, 4 door sports car with a large spoiler was approaching.  It was going way to fast to stop.  "We got this," said Tech #1.

Tech #2 held his hand over the space bar.  The light changed yellow.  The driver slammed on his brakes so hard the car visibly leaned forward.  Then...the car stopped in an incredibly short distance and did not even enter the intersection.

"What the hell was that?"  Tech #1 was upset.

"He's not even tipping over the line.  This is bullshit."

"Fucking jackass."

"That's not right.  No one should be allowed to stop that fast," said Tech #2.  Suddenly, the screen froze up and stopped responding.  "What the...."

"Shit!  What do we do now?"

"Call Orville.  He wrote it."

Unfortunately for them, Orvlle was busy.



Inside the all-wheel-drive black sports car that stopped too fast, Dave put his phone away.  After receiving a warning that the light was being watched (by a mechanism that would bore you) Dave had used his phone to send a text message to a special number that the traffic light software.received.  This text message caused the traffic light software to deliberately and slowly crash.  Every two minutes, for a while, the software would pretend to start working.  Then, a half hour later, it would blue screen and die.  The software did this because Dave wrote it.  Dave wrote it because an unskilled programmer named Orville Pennington was too lazy to write it himself, and had unofficially "subcontracted" the job to Dave over a period of 3 months.  Orville paid Dave almost nothing, like $3 an hour, because Dave was just a research programmer and those guys didn't make shit.  Orville miscalculated.  Dave had written the entire program in a single weekend and had spent the proceeds on bullet proof glass for his rear windshield.  Boys and their toys, you know?

Orville was waiting for him in the coffee shop.  "You sold me shit, man!"

"Keep your voice down.  I'm getting a coffee."

"Hey my lunch break ends in like 20 minutes."  And Orville wouldn't be late for anything.  It was his first day and he would rather die than get fired.

"Yeah, whatever."  Three minutes later Dave sat down with his latte.  Orville hadn't ordered anything, but nonetheless was taking up a lot of space and using the free internet.   "So whats the problem?"

"The problem?  Whats the problem?  You fucking program doesn't work thats the problem."

"Yeah that's why we're here.  Be more specific."

"It doesn't get any of the pictures."

"Hmm."  Dave was not happy.  He had written an entire page of instructions about this.  They could have talked over email.  But nooooo Orville was too worried about getting caught having someone else write his code for him.  "You have to train it."

"What?  Its a software, not a dog."

"Actually, its a lot like a dog in that respect."

"How are you such a shitty programmer that you give me dogshit software for $500 bucks?  I want my money back, fool."  Orville didn't sound fake until he said the word fool.  Dave glanced outside and saw one big ass SUV in the parking lot.  Minivans for Men.  Probalby Orvilles.

"Tell me, Orville, can you name a single image recognition algorithm?"

"No, fucker, that's why I-"

"Did you know that image recognition is NP-Hard?"

"What the f-"

"Do you know why CAPTCHAs are so popular?"

"Uh...no."

"Do you know what a neural net is?"

"No."  Orville's voice was softer now.

"Let me summarize one of the things most computer scientists learn in about 4 to 7 years.  Giving an image to a computer and asking it 'whats in this?' is a difficult problem.  The brightest scientists in the world have been working on this problem for decades, but computers are still pretty dumb about it.  Fortunately for you, you had a very simple use case:  you wanted this program to pick out all the pictures that had girls in them-"

"Not so loud!"

"-which is a yes or no question.  That kind of thing is really easy for a neural net.  Neural nets work a lot like a dog.  They learn.  You spend a bunch of time 'training' it to recognize the kind of picture you want, and after a while it starts to guess right.  I assumed you had a spider crawling the internet for pictures, so I primed it with some-"

"No," said Orville.  He hated spiders.

"So what are you using it for?"

"That's classified."

"You don't have clearance."

"Yes I do, fuck face."  Orville was lying, or he thought the background check for his new job was the same thing as clearance.  "Fix this or give me my money back."

Dave finished the rest of his coffee as fast as he could.  "When you see a picture you like, press F5.  When you see a picture you don't like, press F6.  And next time, read the instructions I sent you."  He got up.

"How long until it starts working."

"That depends what kind of pictures you are trying to get,"  Dave said over his shoulder.  All Dave had really done was download an open source neural net directly onto a cd, write some instructions, print an extra copy because Orville was a dumbass, and mail it to him.  The entire process had taken about 30 minutes.  He'd been paid $500, but Dave was still starting to wonder if it was worth it given that he had to talk to the guy.

Orville waited until Dave had left and hauled ass back to his new job.  He arrived at a drab, nondescript goverment building in Trench City with two minutes to spare.  Orville walked as fast as he could to the doorway without breaking into a jog, partly because he was obese and partly because he did not want to look weird or out of the ordinary.  He. Could. Not. Lose. This. Job.  As soon as he found out about this project he had spent months pulling favors and doing everything he could to get the job without looking too interested.

Orville shuddered to a stop when he saw the spider.  It was right in front of the doorway, and taking its fucking time.  Orville looked at his watch.  One minute.  The spider moved a little.  Orville's leg shook.  He looked at his watch.  Forty-five seconds.  He could still make it to his desk.

"What are you doing?"  Maggied Pennington asked her son.

"Mom?  What are you doing here?"

"I have a meeting with someone.  Why are you just standing there?"

"The...mm....spider."

Maggie rolled her eyes.  "Are you serious?"  Her idiot son wasn't good for much, and how he'd gotten this job she had no idea.  All he had to do was stay out of trouble and he'd joined one of the most controversial security programs she'd ever heard of.  Maggie walked right past the spider, which turned towards Orville.  "Come along now," she called after him.

Orville resisted the urge to scream, hobbled around the spider, and followed his mom inside.  Then, ducked away as soon as he could.  Orville got to his desk late but his supervisor wasn't around.  He logged in and got to work.  Tens of miles away, a 14 year old girl with cancer who was in between radiation treatments because of maximum dosage limits, was being told by the security theatre personel of an international airport that she could either go through the backscattering xray scanner, or allow an over female goverment employee that smells like mints to touch her everywhere, including and especially rubbing a gloved hand down along her pussy and up her butt crack.  That 14 year old girl was sober, straight and had never visited third base (probably not what you're thinking, you dirty, dirty kids) with a boy.  She chose the backscattering xray machine.

Moments later, she appeared on Orville's computer monitor.  The magical, magical xray machine was basically a giant version of what boys had been dreaming about for decades:  xray glasses that saw through a woman's clothing and let then see her naked.  Unfortunately, the picture was all gray-bluish, but the guys he worked with had already figured out how to disable the digital blur that was supposed to appear over the boobs (if only they could magically keep it on for the males) and despite the small boobs Orville had an instant hardon.  He pressed F5.  A copy of the picture was saved to a secret folder.  This was so awesome.  He would sneek it home as soon as he figured out how to re-enable the USB drives.  Orville couldn't believe they paid him for this.  He oogled the 14 year old for just a few more seconds--all he could spare without drawing attention to himself--and clicked on a button that said she was safe to allow onto the plane.

The next person on his screen was a fat woman in her 40s.  "Oh fuck," he said.  "People that fat should be shot."

One of his work mates leaned over to look as his screen. "Yeah," he agreed.

The next person on Orville's screen was a man.  He made a face, pressed F6, and then realized that the man had a bigger penis than he did.  Way bigger.  Orville clicked on the button which signaled to the local security at the airport that the man might have something.  He would be taken aside, and, hopefully, strip searched.  Fucker.  Orville waited for the next person to enter the scanner.

He kept going like that for the rest of the day.  The hot girls were actually few and far between, and there were a lot of ugly people in that between, but the thought of going through all over those pictures later that night kept him hard for hours.  He even snuck to the bathroom around 3 to relieve himself.  He was in luck:  there was some guy in the next stall with loud diahrea, so there was no chance anyone heard him.

That night Orville was summed to dinner before he could get to his room to load the pictures on his computer.  Yeah, he still lived with his parents.  His mom was into local politics and his Dad was a...something or other.  Maggie Pennington was glowing that night.  Marksen Lot, the government contractor that Orville used to work for, and Graywater Security, were backing her.  It was almost a certainty that she would win the nomination.  For mayor.  Big deal.  Orville tuned her out and looked at his step sister, Joss.  He eyes were a bit glassy.  Maybe?  No, it wasn't hopeful thinking.  They were super glassy.

His parents were leaving.  Awesome.  As soon as they were gone Orville rushed up to his room to look at the pictures.  Then his laptop fucked him over.  Something about image...what?  He spent an hour trying to make his computer load the pictures, but really just ended up infecting it with viruses (though he didn't know that).  His hardon was raging.  Fuck.

His sister.  Step!  Step-sister.  With any luck she was completely high and out of her mind.  Again.  Orville walked to her room and listened.

...a glass cage so I can't pretend

you hide beneath the physical

I see it coming but I can't defend

you cut so deep

my belief is gone...

Yeah, she was high.  She always listened to that shit when she was high.  On what, he didn't know.  His parents had searched her room over and over again and never found anyhing.  Orville turned the knob as slowly as he could, even pulling the door towards himself to avoid creaking.  Then he cracked it open and slid inside.  Yeah.  She was on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.  The emo music covered his footfalls on the carpet.  As long as he could reach get to her bed before she noticed him, she wouldn't say anything.  He made it.  She was staring up at the ceiling.

"How are you doing?  You ok?"  he touched her forehead like he was concerned.

"I'm fine."  It worked.  She was all pretending not to be high.

Orville grabbed her tits.  "Are you sure?"

"Uh huh."

Orville started sliding his hand up her shirt.  Then the doorbell went off.  "Fuck!"  He ran downstairs, intent on getting rid of them.  He couldn't.  It was Joss' bitch friend.  There was nothing he could do without getting in trouble later.  "She's upstairs," he growled.  Joss' friend made a face at him and went up the stairs.  Orville punched the wall.  Lightly, though, so it wouldn't hurt.

It ended up being a good thing that Joss' friend busted up his plans;  his mom called him ten minutes later and made him drive down to the stupid dinner thing.  There was someone she wanted him to meet.  If he didn't go, she threatened to take away the keys to the SUV that was actually his Dad's.  Orville went.  His mom intercepted him in the parking lot, scolded him for a bunch of dumb shit he didn't care about, and then kept talking about this thing.

"...we're going to start off before the election, and hire them privately, to show how serious we are," Maggie told him.  Then Orville met a recruiter for Graywater Security.  That he did care about.  Fucking mom;  he finally landed the perfect fucking job and here she was trying to fuck it up.  Orville said anything he could to get out of it, not caring how much he embarrassed his mom.  She was glaring at him like she wanted to kill him.  She might have.  Her bastard son was trying to mess up her entire political career, and that was unforgivable.

The recruiter took Orville aside and continued the conversation.  He talked, and also asked questions.  Orville gave vague answers, until he let slip where he worked.  The recruiter burst out laughing.  "So that's why you want to keep your job so bad."

Orville grew red in the face.

"I think you must have misheard me when I said how much you make.  Do you undertand what you can do with this salary?"

Orville shook his head.

"I'm saying you, my friend, can afford to touch.  Forget those xray porn machines.  The kind of pussy you can afford working for us...well lets just say they don't sell 'em on street corners.

"Where do they sell them?" asked Orville.

The recruiter patted his knee.  "Don't you worry about that.  I know people who can hook you up.  You just gotta show up for training next week.  Oh and uh..."  the recruiter nodded toward Maggie.  "...the expensive hookers are a hush hush kind of thing."

"I won't say nothing!"  Exclaimed Orville.  If the guy was implying what he hoped he was....

"Good man."  The recruiter took Orville back to Maggie and announced that Orville would be joining the team.  Maggie looked at the recruiter in wonder.  After Orville's strange refusal, she had spent the past five minutes distracted from the conversations, trying to decide what to do about, or to, him.

"You are a miracle worker," said Maggie to the recruiter.  A few minutes later, Maggie moved on; she had other proverbial dicks to suck. The recruiter gave Orville a card and left Orville there, looking around awkwardly.  Orville wondered what all this was about.  He knew his mom had been harping on safety for what seemed like ages now.  Something about a motorcycle guy hitting some other guy on a bridge.  It was all she talked about, even at home; she was so full of her own shit.

Orville would find out soon enough.

Mission: Snacklicious

How can a "build" take ten minutes when there is no compiling to do?

--me

Yeah, so...first, this little novel I'm writing is about to get even more explicit.  And this time its not because it needs to, because of what the characters are doing; I just wanted to embed a dig at those retarded softcore porn scanners they are installing at the airports.  Yeah, radiation and amateur porn.  I have no life--I mean--no plans tonight, so I might write that chapter after work.  Spiders, minivans, and softcore porn.  Hey thats actually a good title.  So...well that's where that is going.  If you have been so far shocked at the things I've come up with or the explicit detail, you should probably stop reading it.

More importantly...well its a long story but there is a girl I've never met who works in an office building I don't work in, down in the cafeteria in a sandwich shop I've never been to, thats never seen me before but knows my name.  I've recently blown my chances with every other girl I know here, and from a distance this girl looks attractive, and I have been sick of getting sandwiches from that particular chain for quite some time now, so my new mission, whether I choose to accept it or not, is to take a bus across the city and buy a cookie with a credit card at a time that is similar to lunch time but will be late or early enough that there won't be a line and we can chat if she recognizes my name.  Since I don't work in this building, I am going to have to go from zero to phone number in one conversation.  This tape will se....

That, or start riding the bus to TCC a lot and invent a plausible cover story for why I'm suddenly in that building a lot and make the cover story true, because lying isn't my thing.  Don't worry.  I've done this kind of thing before.

Carbon 250 - Chapter 16

Rose on a Grave

and if I should fall along the way

I've been kissed by a rose

been kissed by a rose on the grey

Eve could have called someone to pick her up, but Carby would still be there in the rain.  She waited it out.  Minutes became many minutes.  She started to wonder.  A road ninja playground: that's what he called it.  The rain was coming down like it was being sprayed on the earth with an astronomical garden hose.  She wasn't going anywhere, and the library was still open.  Why not indulge?  She would try the cinematic microfiche investigation.

Eve hurried back inside, excited about what she might find.  The library no longer had a microfiche section: budget cuts dwindling usage, internet, etc.  Most newspapers were "on pdf" now, though.  The helpful person at the desk directed her to the computer section.  She spent ten, well, twenty minutes mindlessly surfing.  Then she got down to business.  Newspaper in the area?  She started by finding newspapers near Brenda's house.  What, should she write down a list?  This was pretty boring.  She looked outside.  Lightning flashed.

Forty-five minutes later the rain had increased from heavy to torrential and she was looking at a weather radar website.  The really dark patch was right on top of the library.  She flipped back to the newspaper websites and the many windows of unsearchable pdf files.  Not a single newspaper contained the phrase "road ninja," not in that time period.  Wait, what time period?  Well, he was not terribly far from her age.  Was he?

Eve took a mental step back.  It could have been a coincidence that Dave and Biff had both used the phrase road ninja.  People were always making jokes about ninjas and pirates and zombies, right?  Dave's reference had been in the third person, Biff's in the first.  Eve kept looking.  It was sincerely tough to find information about something that wasn't readily available via something like a web search.  How did people ever find out about stuff?

On a hunch, Eve checked obituaries.  There was nothing really special.  What was one car accident compared to another?  Then she found something interesting.  A small feel-good community type piece mentioning an unlicensed spotlight.  Did those things really have to be licensed?  It was installed in the back of an auto shop called Wilson's Tire Garage.  It was turned on seemingly at random.  One of the employees there claimed that he was summoning "the road ninja."  The reporter also interviewed some cops and concluded that the "road ninja signal," which on cloudy nights put an orange circle in the sky with a blacked out R and a backwards N, was actually just an area wide signal for ill-advised weekend benders.  One person quoted said that had to stop using it because the cops started showing up every time.

The article did mention some of the "road ninja story," just for fun.  He was apparently a legend, credited with performing the most irresponsible and ridiculous stunts Eve had ever heard of in a "black muscle car" and for, allegedly, having such a thirst for mountain dew that Pepsi sent an entire truck to deliver the soda to Wilson's Tire Garage.  Well, there was a giant clue.  Was that his "bat cave?"  She wanted to know more.  She looked at  the author of the article.

Christine Miller.

Eve had trouble finding a current address, then found a strange "blog" post claiming that "Miller now resides at 325 Oak Drive."  Eve looked up from the computer.  The library was closing.  The rain had stopped a while ago.  The desk clerk was asking her to leave.  Embarrased, Eve quickly gathered up her things.

"You find what you're looking for?" the clerk asked.

"I found...something," Eve replied.  Then she left.

The clerk watched her ride away in her pink jumpsuit.

Eve waited with impatience for the next day she had completely open.  She didn't mention her trip to Dave;  she hadn't mentioned any of her contact with Mr ninjapants to Dave.

It happened on a wednesday.  She had far to go.  She wore comfortable sweatpants inside her riding suit, and then stuck a washcloth in them for extra padding--that seat always made the inside of her legs throb after two or three hours.  Come to think of it, her back also got kind of sore; the handlebars were too close to the seat.  There was nothing she could do about that now.  nside her top, Eve wore a slim vest with pockets.  The pockets were for holding heat packs that she'd found at a camping store.  She'd read one of her step-brother's (the nice one) boy scout manuals when she was little, and remembered this diagram of where heat was lost on the body:  the chest, and the upper part of the legs.  From experience, the back of her neck was also a big deal.  Eve put on a hoodie, the slimmest one she could find, so that the hood would still fit in the helmet without giving her a headache.  It worked.  Eve took the helmet off and walked into the bathroom to look in the mirror.  She felt like an astronaut.  It was a good feeling.

She left in the darkness of 6:30 am, a time that most self-styled ninjas were never out because they always stayed out for the empty streets of 5 am and then went to bed.  Going to bed a 9 and then getting up at 6 was probably something they'd never think of.  Eve stopped at the coffee shop, as a customer, and drank a coffee.

"Where are you off too?" asked one of her coworkers.

"Research.  Think maybe I'll try a hand at journalism.  Maybe."

Traffic was already building up when she reached the highway, but she was outbound, and not in a terrible hurry.  She had a long way to go and spending the entire time dodging cars would get real tiring, real fast.

Then the sun came up.  Dust in the air allowed the light to appear as enormous streaks through the air as the light bend down through the mountains.  The mystery of the night slowly receded back to twilight and then the trees began to glow.  The same reds, yellows, and browns danced all around her.  It was glorious.  Eve admitted to herself that she needed a new word, but could think of none that suited this visual.


Her destination was nearly twice the full range of her bike, which is quite heavily depended on how fast the rider likes to accelerate.  Eve filled up three times.  She'd nearly run out of gas once, coasting into a station on fumes (given away by the change in pitch of Carby's engine) and she never wanted to repeat the experience.  Around midday she stopped for a quick lunch.  Then she reached her destination:  Wilson's Tire Garage.

It was situated on a back road, which really seemed like the only kind of road around here.  There were twisty, hilly, two lane back roads, and there were slightly less twisty two lane roads with more traffic.  The garage was a simple four bay affair with an office on the left and two soda machines (one unlit) out in front in the gravel lot.  Eve still didn't like gravel.  She coasted all the way inside the threshold of the open bay and turned off her engine.  She'd entered a wall of heat, which was definitely spilling outside and wasting a ton of money.

A boy came out from a back room, rubbing his eyes.  He was wearing nothing but beltless shorts and a hangover.  "What can I do you f--"  He stopped.  "Woah."  He started.  His shorts were in a constant state of falling down, and despite his readjustment every thirty seconds they constantly revealed a bit more of his waist than Eve cared to see.  "Lee!"

"I need an oil change."  Eve said her line.  She appeared to say it too early.

Sounds of another boy stirring came from the back.  A boy--an asian looking boy--maybe half-asian--the kind that might deliver pizzas for the mafia in some dystopian future--came out wearing a floral-patterned bathrobe.  He held in, in his hand, a coffee mug with a bottle of beer inside.  He tipped the mug up carefully as he walked, trying to line up the beer properly with his mouth.  Then he saw Eve.  "Holy fuckshit."

"What are you boys staring at?  Aint you ever seen a girl before, sugar?" Eve put her hands on her hips.

"Staring at a fucking ghost, man," said Lee.

Nearly-naked boy try to explain:  "If you had black hair..."

"Blonde," said Lee.

"...blonde hair, you would look just like her."

"And a pink helmet," offered Lee.

"Yeah," the other boy agreed.   "Well, and the bike, too.  What is that a 250?"

"Uh huh.  You boys mind fixing me up with some new oil, or are you just gonna stand there and drool all day."  Eve didn't actually mind the attention..

"Sure thing boss.  I'm Jason."  Nearly naked kid stuck his hand out.  Eve shook it, then regretted it.  There was something sticky.  Eve looked around, found a dirty rag, and scrubbed her hand with it.

Lee bent down and picked up an empty beer bottle.  And a not so empty one.  Then he started walking around the garage, picking up more of them.  It was then that Eve noticed the incredible mess.  Garages were normally messy, yes, but the cars and the dirt and the greese and the tools were all in the three other bays.  Two cars were in various states of repair, and a third, way down on the end, looked like it had been set on a pike to rust away.  In the bay were she was standing, the refuse of a wild party was strewn everywhere.  Through the door to the office she could see a waist-high flat surface covered liquor bottles.  Most of them were open.  From the back room came the sounds of girls stirring.

Jason took Carby's kick stand up, and then pressed down on something next to the left exhaust pipe with his boot.  Two black poles swung down.  Jason rocked Carby back onto them until they locked in place and he stood there, straight up (unlike with the kick stand) with his rear tire off the ground.  That was how Eve learned what a center stand was.

Shouldn't you buy me dinner first? asked Carby.

Jason went to the side and kicked a plastic tub, skidding it over until it was under Carby.  "So what brings you to out this way?"

"Curiosity," said Eve.  "I heard you guys have a helluva party thing going on..."

"Ya, you just missed one."

"...and a cool spot light."

The two boys stopped what they were doing and looked at her.  "It's been a while since we had that thing on," said Lee.

"What's it for?  Announcing your parties?"

Jason shook his head.  "Lee, will you..."

"Yeah."  Lee led Eve into the office.  Behind her, Jason took a screw out of Carby, releasing a steady stream of pitch black oil.

Aaaahhhhh, said Carby.

Inside the office, Lee showed Eve the shrine:  a wall of newspaper clippings and photographs.  They were on the wall behind the liquor.  Of course.  "Meet Biff Becker, The Road Ninja," said Lee.  Lee raised the empty glasses to the wall.  Eve took it all in.  The clippings were from The Bucktown Tribune, "Bucktown's best unsanctioned newspaper."  Eve resisted the impulse to cross out "unsanctioned" and replace it with "unofficial."  Eve was tempted to mention that she had met Biff, that she had a crush on h--no she didn't!  No crush!  No crushes here, move along.  This is not the crush you are looking for.


If she had mentioned Biff at that time, things would have been completely different, for everyone.  Eve pointed to a picture dead center.  "What happened here?"  It was a picture of a cliff.

Lee pointed at another one.  "Her."  The picture showed a clearly femenine form on a motorcycle.  "Biff, that old cat, he was in love with her."  Eve read the clipping.

Jason popped his head in.  "Hey.  I'm gunna give you the lower viscosity, for the winter."  He had put a shirt on.  Thank the angels.

"Sounds good," said Eve.  Then, "she died?"

"Yeah," said Lee.  "I don't know how it happened.  Biff does.  He saw it.  He didn't stick around for the coppers.  Fuckin...everyone else there was a part of it.  Fucking lying weedwackers.  This girl, man...."  Lee paused.  "She slammed neck first into an oncoming minivan.  Biff said she died on impact. That's really all he said."  Lee pointed at the center picture.  "Then he drove his Boss 429 off a cliff and they never found the body."

Eve gasped.

"I like to think they are in car heaven together making babies," interjected Jason.  Behind him, the funnel-quart-bottle contraption  he had set up in order to join the conversation collapsed, spilling oil on the ground.  Jason returned to it and was forced to start guessing how much more to put in to make it show up just right on the gauge.  Eve watched him.  She watched both of them.  They were, basically, people who started their lives immediately after high school.  Eve felt like she was still waiting to start hers--her new one.

"Wanna see the spotlight?" asked Lee.

Eve shrugged.  "Sure."  She felt like a superhero's secret girlfriend, being shown all of his secret toys.  Lee took her through the back, past some just-waking girls that regarded her coolly, past the bbq equipment, down and short hill and to a large spotlight that was still plugged in.  Beer bottles were lined up in strange circular formations, some kind of drinking game Eve had never heard of.

Lee flipped the switch.  "Yeah, its still busted.  I think the bulb burned out."  Eve touched the metal letters.  "It never really worked that often anyway...you kind of had to have some low cumulus formations, or the thing just scattered too much, you know?"  Eve didn't know, but she nodded.  Then Lee touched her shoulder--woah.  Eve grabbed his hand, ready to break his fingers, so he just pointed.  "You have a small tear in the shoulder."

Eve let go of his hand and felt herself.  He was right.  There was a small tear right below the sholder pad.  She looked at Lee.

"I don't know how to say this, and I know you won't believe me...I think you have her suit."

"Whose?"

"The pink riders.  The dead one."  Lee motioned at the garage with his thumb.

"Well, it was on sale."  Eve didn't say anything else.

"It was a swordfight."

"Really."  Eve looked at him for a bit, then turned back for the garage.  Now he was just bullshitting her.

Back inside, she had a beer or two with them.  I mean why not, right?  The girls were awake, and another boy.  They all sat in a circle of folding chairs.  Lee, whose first name was apparently Lawrence but he was called Lee, and Jason regaled them with stories of grandeur that increased just as the credibility decreased.

"And remember the Knight Rider?"

"That was the best one-"

"Totally!"

"You see Biff was doing the cannonball run-"

"We all were."

"Well I wasn't there."

"You don't count anyway."

"Fuck you and your rice burner."

"-and the cops in one of the flyover states caught on, and they did the roadblock thing, but Biff, well he wasn't really doing the cannonball run."

"I heard he tipped them off himself."

"We don't know that."

"Whatever."

"So he makes friends with this tow trucker guy-"

"That was Snow Monkey."

"No, snow monkey was the pilot."

"Not that time.  They never pulled off the airlift before the...uh..."

A moment of silence.

"Yeah, so whoever, and he had the truck, and they spent like a week."

"It only took like 16 hours.  Two days, tops."

"Yeah but with the tools and the problems and stuff it stretched out to a week."

"Fuck it, come on."

"So they door the doors off, and put on this door that swung down, like a ramp."

"Have you seen knight rider?"

"Yes," said Eve.

"So you know what we're talking about."

"So they did while moving."

"Only like 30 miles an-"

"They were moving.  It was awesome.  The cops let them right through."

"Then he finished the race."

"Yeah, I think Biff just wanted to play with blockades, but he finished the race."

"Set the record"

"No he didn't."

"There's no proof, but he did get there like...fucking fast, dude."  Whoever spoke took another swallow of light beer.

"They were gonna try it again, but have a helicopter pick up the container from the truck, while it was fucking movinig."

"Fucking badass, man."

"Yeah, Snow Monkey was our pilot.  He was having trouble getting a big enough helicopter.  Apparently they can't carry much-"

"Helos can't carry shit, man, and if they bump that tail into anything they just fall out of the sky."

"Boom."

Eve looked at her watch.  Enough time had passed for her to process the beer.  "Alright, boys, I gotta go."

"Wait, no, one more story."

"You gotta hear this one."

"Yeah, tell her the one about Snow Monkey."

"Fuckszzzyouoff, no"

"No, its about her.  The...man you're pink too."

"Whatever.  She's still the pink rider.  Just because you put on a pink pantieszz doesn'ts make you the pink rider."

Eve raised an eyebrow.

"Dude, would you shut up?

"Fuckoff"

"You're still drunk."

"Am not"

"You drank all of my vanilla rum last night."

"And you were so wasted you probably didn't taste it."

"Can we get to the story, boys?" asked Eve.

"This was how they met."

"At a bar."

"Outside a bar.  And it was a lounge, my friend."  They could stay open til 2:30."

"There ain't no fucking lounges around here."

"Just...go fall in a hole and die, will you?"

"And bring back a bottle of rum for me."

"So Biff got into a fight with this guy."

"Three guys."

"No, that was just exagerationness."

"It was at least two."

"Well, yeah, if you count the guy with a knife."

"Who brings a knife to a bar fight?  I mean, seriouslyz."

"Its 'knife to a gunfight,' dumbass."

"Biff used to get in fights a lot.  Like, all the time.  Well, occasionally."

"He beat this guy with a beer bottle.  Your not supposed to take them, out, but good thing he did."

"Don't worry, he was gonna walk home."

"Fuck no, snow monkey was driving."

"So this guy...well Biff had slept with his girlfriend.  Like, twice."

"Oh it was way more than that."

"No, before the fight."

"Biff beat the guy, he had him on the ground, but he didn't see his buddy with the knife."

"Yeah.  Like a 6 inch blade."

"I kid you not."

"Biff wasn't a great, like, fighter."

"Not back then."

"No, he was gunna get sliced up."

"Knife boy was just standing there, grinning, and then this girl-"

"No then he sees ths headlight behind the guy."

"Oh stop trying to make it all dramatic.  You take too long."

"Fuck you."  He turned to Eve.  "Am I taking too long?"

Eve shook her head.  "No sir, keep going."

Well, this is inefficient.

From what Eve could gather, the pink rider had, on her motorcycle, ridden up behind the guy with a knife, then braked her front tire, hard, and swung the back of her bike around, knocking over the guy with the knife.  Then she had ridden off with barely a nodd to Biff.  One of them claimed that Biff and this girl had never actually spoken to each other.  Allegedly, the pink rider had saved him one other time.  This time the person was holding a gun to Biff's head, and the pink rider had shot in like a bullet, and then font-braked so hard that the bike flipped over her and went flying, end over end, until it hit the man with the gun and killed him.

So.  Biff's secret hideout was not a waterfalled caved under a billionare's mansion, but a...garage where boys drank constantly, told stories, and pulled pranks that inspired more stories.

Eve thanked the boys and left.  Her next destination was Christine Miller's place.  Eve reached into her suit.  It was awkward getting the maps out of her sweatpants pocket but she did it.  There was tape too.  She taped the directions onto her arm.  Crude, but effective.  Motorcycle GPS units were too expensive.

Perhaps she could have used one.  The directions she printed out took her to a cemetery.  The address on the gate matched hers.  Was it a joke?  Was Miller dead?  The gate was open.  Eve coasted up to it, kicked it wider, and continued on inside.  The cemetery was not one of the small, block or two affairs.  Gravestones extended behind rolling hills where the eye couldn't see its borders.  This cemetery was old.

In the zombie version of this story, the gate creeks, and there is a gust of wind, and Eve happens to have a belt with 3 extra 9mm clips.

Eve rode down, up, down, a little up the path with no particular destination.  Carby's motor purred softly.  In a small cemetery, despite the chances of Christine Miller being there so small, Eve might have been convinced to look at each grave just to see.  If she had some ice cream or something.  Not in a place like this.  That's something...that is something Biff would do.  She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she did.  The day was not warm.  The place was not small.  She was a long way from home.  Eve did not leave, though.  She saw something that made her stop abruptly, then back up a little, then a lot, trying to find a place where she could leave Carby on the side stand without him tipping over.

Hey man, at least you can brake and shift me at the same time, said Carby.

It was a rose.  A bright red rose.  Somewhere...she walked down along the road, caught another glimpse of it, then took a path.  Then she heard someone else there.

Zombie version:  she held her gun up for no good reason and cocked it.

Eve unzipped her suit, took off her inner hoodie, and then put it back on over the suit, hoping she would look more normal.  She didn't.

"...so leave me at the road side

hang me up and out to dry

and I don't think

you see

the places inside me that I find you..."

Someone was singing.  He was only a few rows away.  Eve didn't look.  Leave the survivors to their grief.  Eve spotted the rose.  Three rows down hill.  She walked between the graves, knowing some people at a problem with that.  Like the dead care.  The tombstone was ornate, marble.  The rose was fresh.  Someone had just been here.

"Is this some kind of joke?"  It was a man's voice.

Eve turned and put her hand on her hip.  "Well I ain't laughing."

The man was tall, old.  Yet, a little boy, far to young to be his child in any normal family.  The man had a brown overcoat, untied at the waist.  The little boy, well he was too far away to tell but the little boy had dark eyes.  "Are you one of her friends?" the old man asked.  That might explain the riding gear.

Eve looked at the tombstone.  Christine Miller.  "No, I'm sorry."

"Then what are you doing at my daughters grave?"

"I...this...it said this was her address.  I wanted to ask her some questions."

"About."

"The Road N--"  Shit.  Yeah, great journalism there.

The man spun around and walked away.  The boy ran around him and up to her.  He looked up at her with wonder.  The man barked for the kid.  "You look just like her.  Sorta," said the little boy.  "She was beautiful."

"Was she your mommy?"

"Not exactly," he answered.  The old man barked for him again, more harshly.  The kid knelt down to a stone and tapped it with his entire hand.  "For you," he said, then ran away.  Eve watched them leave, unsure what to do.  She sat down next to the grave.  She was unsure what to make of all this.  Here she was, chasing down a strange story surrounding a strange person that faked (or poorly attempted?) his own death, possibly wearing the suit of a girl who was allegedly the town hero of this...area.  Hey sugar, it was on sale.

Eve sat and thought for a while.  She felt like she was caught up in, or perhaps on the edge of, something interesting.  Not incredible, or great, just interesting.  Thrilling.  She most definitely loved motorcycles, and she loved the thrills, and she loved the suit.  Was she in some sick way trying to fill the shoes of some dead girl?

No.

She didn't know anything about Christine Miller.  She wanted to.  She wished she did.  It sounded like who Miller really was, was a mystery to almost every one except maybe that old man and the kid.  To everyone else, she was the pink rider.  That's probably how Miller liked it.  Eve knew that's how she liked it.  Who Christine could have become, and whether they would have been friends, and would Eve have been part of her possee...no one could know now.

Out of curiosity, Eve leaned forward and pressed the stone.  Nothing happened.  She was almost expecting the stones to fold down into a secret entrance, some secret lair of the pink rider.  It didn't.  The stone did wiggle though.  Eve leaned forward on her knees and lifted it.  There was a secret compartment, sort of.  It was really more of a thin hole which the stone fit over like a manhole cover.  Inside was a sealed brown bag.  Eve unsealed it.  It was a sword.  What?  A sword.  It seemed a bit small though.

That's what she said.

The blade and handle, the entire thing, was about as long as her forearm, including her fingers.  It was a straight blade, looked like one edge was sharp and one was not.  The handle was brown and black, not fancy.  The hilt hand guard thing was thin, almost not even there.  At the bottom of the grip was a stone.  A dirty stone.  Eve rubbed it.  It looked like a diamond, but the dirt wasn't coming off.  It was inside the gem.  The strangeness of it reminded her of the necklace she was wearing, that Dave gave her.  Had she asked him about the sword, he would have told her it was an industrial grade diamond.  One thing she could tell just from looking at it was that if you hit someone in the temple with the butt of that sword, they would bleed a lot.  Eve felt the tiny rip in her suit below the left shoulder.  Maybe there was truth to some of those stories.

Eve replaced the stone but kept the sword.  Apparently grave robbing was now one of her new skills.  Then again, the kid did sort of give it to her.  Why was a sword buried here like this anyway, and not in her casket?  Then Eve saw the initials R and a backwards N carved into the stone.  Eve looked at the diamond on the butt of the sword.  Yeah.  That's how he did it.  She pressed the sword to the stone to see if it worked, and then realized she had nothing to write.  She had no calling card, or symbol, or initials, or fancy name that she wanted to leave behind.  She had no identity, and she liked it that way.  She drew a heart around the initials of Biff's alias.  Then she said goodbye to Christine Miller and walked away.

Getting the sword home would be a problem.  Motorcycles did not come with sword holders.  She didn't want to sacrifice her map tape; if she got lost here that would be an interesting call for Dave.  She tried sticking it in her suit, but it wouldn't fit in the leg, or her back, and sticking it in front made her too nervous that she would lose something valuable, no matter which way the sword was pointed.  She ended up wrapping it in the brown material and holding it against the gas tank with her right leg.  It would be all stopping on the left one from here to home.

Carbon 250, abandoned chapter 16 attempt

Rose on a Grave

and if I should fall along the way

I've been kissed by a rose

been kissed by a rose on the grey

Eve could have called someone to pick her up, but Carby would still be there in the rain.  She waited it out.  Minutes became many minutes.  She started to wonder.  A road ninja playground: that's what he called it.  The rain was coming down like it was being sprayed on the earth with an astronomical garden hose.  She wasn't going anywhere, and the library was still open.  Why not induldge?  She would try the cinematic microfiche investigation.

Eve hurried back inside, excited about what she might find.  The library no longer had a microfiche section: budget cuts dwindling usage, internet, etc.  Most newspapers were "on pdf" now, though.  The helpful person at the desk directed her to the computer section.  She spent ten, well, twenty minutes mindlessly surfing.  Then she got down to business.  Newspaper in the area?  She started by finding newspapers near Brenda's house.  What, should she write down a list?  This was pretty boring.  She looked outside.  Lightning flashed.

Forty-five minutes later the rain had increased from heavy to torrential and she was looking at a weather radar website.  The really dark patch was right on top of the library.  She flipped back to the newspaper websites and the many windows of unsearchable pdf files.  Not a single newspaper contained the phrase "road ninja," not in that time period.  Wait, what time period?  Well, he was not terribly far from her age.  Was he?

Eve took a mental step back.  It could have been a coincidence that Dave and Biff had both used the phrase road ninja.  People were always making jokes about ninjas and pirates and zombies, right?  Dave's reference had been in the third person, Biff's in the first.  Eve kept looking.  It was sincerely tough to find information about something that wasn't readily available via something like a web search.  How did people ever find out about stuff?

On a hunch, Eve checked obituaries.  There was nothing really special.  What was one car accident compared to another?  Then she found The Bucktown Tribune.  Bucktown was an interesting place, barely a dot on the map.  However, a high school, a 7-11, a radio station and a bicycle shop were all within the city--town--village? limits.  No one lived in Bucktown, but thousands of people were from there.

The Bucktown Tribute told their story.  It was not a real school newspaper, but a completely amateur, unsactioned one.  It had "the dirt."  It was mostly local gossip, a blur of faceless names:  who was sleeping with who, he-said-she-said, "advice" from and to teenagers, a high school sports section, an attempt at fashion commentary, raunchy cartoons, and announcements for parties.  Ah, and trash about teachers.  "Mrs. B---- couldn't teach a shark to swim!"  Stuff like that.  Eve read some of the stories.  A few were ridiculously funny.  Many of the sections where chauvinistic: clearly written by a boy.  Eve was briefly distracted but then she found it:  a story about "the road ninja."  The tribute was "published" weekly.  Stories of "the road ninja's" exploits appeared, at most, every few issues, usually even farther apart.  Eve began reading them, fascinated.  She started noticing specific details, like "a fifteen car pileup."  Quick checks revealed the newspapers corroborated those details.  There was still no proof that Biff--well she didn't know it was Biff--had actually approached a large accident where first-responders were already involved, done a 540 degree spin from one side of the highway to another, leaned out of his window and handed an "ice cold" can of mountain dew to the female passenger of a white convertible whose boyfriend "flipped his shit," but there was proof of an accident on the highway on that date.

Some of the stories were unbelievable, especially regarding the level of details, especially details that only this "road ninja" would have known.  Some of the stories were ridiculous.  Some did not even make sense.  Eve continued reading them, though, enthralled by the exploits of...whatever this person was.  He wasn't really a vigilante, unless you counted speed limits as real laws.  Eve did not.  She found his name in one of the first few entries:  Biff.  Biff Becker.  He hadn't lied, or, at least, he'd kept his story straight.  She was good at this, maybe?  It was so exciting.  Maybe she could be a reporter.  There was no picture of him, though.  No way to know it was really him.

Biff was, in fact, a legend in this area.  One of his friends had even made a "road ninja signal" just like the Batman signal in popular culture.  It was a giant spotlight installed behind a shop called Wilson's Tire Garage, and it projected an R and a backwards N into the sky.  There were no specific details about why the road ninja was ever summoned.  Even stranger, The Road Ninja was never mentioned on a motorcycle, only a "black muscle car."  A motorcyclist was mentioned.  A girl motorcyclist.  Eve found her name in what she would later discover was the penultimate road-ninja-related entry.  It was about her death.

The library was closing.  The rain had stopped a while ago.  The desk clerk was asking her to leave.  Embarrased, Eve quickly gathered up her things.

"You find what you're looking for?" the clerk asked.

"I found...something," Eve replied.  Then she left.


The clerk watched her ride away in her pink jumpsuit.


Eve did not sleep well that night.  She ended up on the floor, downstairs, sipping wine and looking at the bigass painting of Biff.  She still hadn't really mentioned Biiff to Dave.  Were either of them from Bucktown?  Dave hadn't mentioned it.  The stories about Biff never said anything about him having attended that high school.  Eve looked at the painting and tried to imagine Biff in a car--a sports car--a black "muscle" car instead.  She could kind of see it.  Those were--were those different days?


Eve decided she had to check out these stories for herself.