The Dream Walker

It's been a long week back at work and I am admittedly out of my usual clever and witty ideas for writing. So for your enjoyment I thought it would be fun if I reproduce a supplemental story I wrote for a role-playing campaign I am running for my friends. Enjoy.

Dreams are born,
Dreams are bred,
Dreams are thorns,
Dreams to dread.

The scent is like fire in my nostrils. It is not smell in the sense most mortals or men understand it, but something deeper. It comes to me through the world of dreams, the world of my reality. The place where the heavens bear themselves open to me, unbound by the mortal flesh, where I rule, where I walk, and where I hunt.

The trail is fresh and I have been following it for leagues now. It had eluded me for a time, but there is no limit to the dream. Distance is but an insignificant speck among the vastness of eternity to one such as me, but even so, I knew I was now close, in both body and soul. The cursed one believes himself safe from me, shielded by his monstrous master and her deceptions. No one is safe, for I hunt on the most dangerous field of all.

Only one of ten men pay me any mind as I pass through the massive stone gates and with a touch they soon forget what they saw. They always forget, or they die screaming in their sleep. Either way they do not trouble me further.

Most people abhor my methods, but they have not seen what I have seen. My own kin and kind banished me from their borders for the words I spoke, the actions I have taken, the distances I am willing to go. Evil is a word bound in the dreamless world, just a bit of wind carried by the voice of a mortal. It has no distinction in my holy mission. There is only one who guides my actions and she has granted me this quest. There is a beast that will consume us all and it is my sacred duty to put it to rest. I do not have the luxury of bending to the moral judgments of the lesser.

This dreamless world is a strange place to me, full of anger and hatred, men in suits of metal, and men in suits of delusion. I walk by them all, a ghost on the wind, a shade at the tip of remembering and dismissed the next moment as if never existing. Only did I find one who could stand up to me.

He tried to lock me away in a collar of metal and mechanics. I consumed his dreams, I stole his nightmares, and I devoured his soul. Now he lives in me, a small part, but enough. I added him to my collection of voices and now he whispers to me, telling me things I would not normally know, a useful voice in this world devoid of dreams and magic. Strange words like “steam,” “shroud,” and “Ministry” swim up through the void to fill my mind.

The forest around me is sweet. It smells clean and pure with a hint of the sea. I allow myself to drift from the path, unmissed by the steady river of travelers who move down the road around me. I am a whisper, blown away by the breeze. I put my hand to the tree and feel its life below my skin. A tree does not dream as a mortal, but it dreams its own dreams, it exists in both the dreamless world and on the great plains of vision and mind. It is a comforting anchor, a creature not unlike myself, who walks in both. I am reminded of home and its tall wide trees, a place of paradise where the dream and the dreamer could truly be one.

Mortals and men are blind to what lays around them, consumed by their dreamless worries. They cannot walk in both as I can. When I gaze upon them, mulling past me on the road, like ants marching in their lines, I see what they cannot. I see their flesh and their faces with my own mortal sense, but I also see their spirits, the worlds that spin around them like the hands on a clock, worlds they can only glimpse as they lay in their beds.

An ugly farmer, with a boil for a noise, swims in a world where he is beautiful. A small boy of no more than nine summers walks in a suit of armor, the small dog beside him a mighty warsteed. Another woman, fat with child, has dreams of her son. In them she sees him growing up strong and doing great deeds, while the child in her womb dreams only of warmth and comfort and a soft voice without face. Behind her a man, her husband, with a straight spine, but a crooked bent in his soul dreams of her death. His mind is full of women, wine, coin, and the one murder he has already committed. It was self-defense, but he liked the taste of it on his lips and hands. He craves more and desires less family.

I peer harder and see their future. I see her broken body, and the cry of an abandoned child. I see the sorrow that will consume them all and for a moment I want to reach out and stop it. It would only take a touch and the man would fall screaming, his blood thirst cut short before the dream can come to pass, and the road before them all would be sweeter for it. Yet I stop myself. It is not my mission, not my place. The lives of mortals are their own in this dreamless world. So I let them pass down the road, the path to their futures set.

Uncertainty is not the right word, but it is hard for me to express emotions to those that do not fully experience the places I walk. Words are dry husks of something more. They are dead leaves carried about by whim, giving only the most passing impression of the true world. Still, I feel the need to reaffirm my quest, to reach out and find the nightmare I have been chasing.

The beast is so close I can almost taste his foulness. It repulses me to touch him, but I must. I calm myself, reaching both inward and outward. I cannot falter in my holy mission, not when I am so close to witnessing its completion. Soon I will face my fate as all must.

The first mind I find is basic yet brave and loyal. I know the sensation well: a wolf, still a babe as it bends its will to his master. The master is also a youth, but just as brave and of keen mind. There is barely a hair on his chin, but he swirls with secrets and half-glimpsed futures. There are paths to destiny on his road, if he does not fall among the brambles.

Another mind reaches out to grab me, like some giant fish jumping at a fly skittering across the stream. It is not a conscious effort on the part of this man, only a reflex he has long forgotten. He is a man of my own kin, the people of the forest, and in a way we are all bound together in dream and spirit. He is old, much older than the last, and his mind is littered with squalor. There are dark corners to his nightmares, those he has suffered, and even worse those he has inflicted upon himself. He has a buried heart, but even among the dark swamp of his mind it still beats, softly, but steadily.

The next man’s mind is like a fire. It burns to touch, yet I cannot seem to pull myself away, for there is warmth there. Words like responsibility and strength echo the halls of the castles he builds in his dreams. He is resolute in his convictions, straight as elven steel and twice as strong. Yet, it is a sword that cuts both ways in both victory and failure. It is a mind that can break bonds or break bones.

Simple, is not the proper word to use for the next mind I find. He is far from simple. Perhaps, uncomplicated or earnest are more precise. There is a stoicism there that lights every dream, and even his wrath and anger feel somehow clean. It is rare to find a creature without duplicity or malice, but even rarer to find one who has suffered as he has. I watch his pain among a cauldron of broiling memories, and yet they never bubble over.

These are the allies of the demon I seek, the men I must surely cut through to reach him, like a surgeon cutting away skin and bone to reach an infected organ. They are bound to the beast as he is bound to them in strange links of fidelity and shared experience. They are killers all, but not wicked. They are both good and bad, but I am beyond such distinctions. They protect the greatest evil, the beast which will lay siege to the lands. Their lack of foreknowledge is no excuse, in fact it will make them all the more dangerous.

Finally, my dreams reach out and I find the great evil. It is so close that I almost feel myself wither before it, but I cannot yield, nor do I dare touch its mind fully. I will not alert it to what is to come. The creature's mind is a vault, sealed off with locks of twisted magic and utter vileness. To even approach the door would be to close it forever and lose my chance to end the coming horror before it is unleashed.

I stand up, but I have no memory of ever sitting. The body has a mind of its own, and it is not a mind even I can control. Still my legs are sore and the dreamless part of me wonders if I have been still for moments or moon-turns. It is always such when I go seeking in the plains of dreams and visions. Yet the power that my great goddess has granted me is not without limits, for I only know the generalities of my target’s location. I will need to hunt him in more mundane ways if I truly wish to succeed, but he will not be able to conceal himself forever.

Finally, I turn my weary legs back toward the road. The voice of the man, who tried to bind me in steam and steel, floats up to me unbidden. I gaze upon the magnificent walls and soaring towers of the land that lay in the distance, the land upon which my feet now points. Words like “Long Neck” and “Kitehawk” swirl like vague memories in my mind. I pull them to me, learning all I can from the soul that now lives inside me. I will need this knowledge in the time ahead.

A small part of me regrets the things I may have to do, but I salve such wounds with the reminder that a few deaths are a small sacrifice to stop the coming horror, where corpses will be heaped upon themselves like logs on a fire. I look again to the city in the distance and I wonder if anyone there senses what is among them. I doubt it. To me the beast stands naked in all his true horror, but to them he is nothing more than a stranger.

Rewrites: Gotham

[Okay, here is my disclaimer. This has been a post I have worked on (on and off) for about six months now. This is still a pretty rough outline of my thoughts on improving the third movie, and the important dialogue would need to be written by a better person than me. So, I am going to give a little credit to Nolan on this one. Writing a satisfying conclusion to his Batman trilogy is pretty hard, but let's face facts... he phoned it in. You can have Batman carry a giant nuclear bomb out to sea and call it an homage all you want, but it's still more Adam West than Frank Miller.]

Nolan's mistake was that he drew inspiration from the wrong comic books. He based his movie on the comics like, Knightfall and No Man's Land, both of which are classics, but what he should have looked toward was the Batman comic Prey as well, especially in it's choice of villain, Hugo Strange. It's a more befitting storyline and would even let Nolan throw some nods to fans of the comics without crossing over into the realm of "generic prison pit in some desert." You even could have kept similar casting, as Tom Hardy would have made an impressive Strange.

Gotham

It has been eight years since the death of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and though crime and corruption in Gotham have improved, the rise of super-criminals has made life in the city difficult. Many blame Batman (Christian Bale). The prologue begins with Edward Nashton aka "The Riddler." (James McAvoy) escaping from prison though an elaborate ruse.

The story opens with Batman disrupting a police sting operation by shaking down a known drug dealer called "The Mad Hatter," a known associate of the Riddler. The young sergeant in charge of the sting operation, Richard Grayson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt,) tries to apprehend Batman before he can escape but fails. The next morning, Mayor Anthony Garcia (Nestor Carbone) calls a press conference to announce that he is assigning the prominent psychologist, Hugo Strange (Tom Hardy,) to help Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) apprehend the Batman. The doctor is given the authority to use any resources at his disposal and he immediately starts an active recruiting program, brining in police that are loyal to him. Strange was formerly lead psychologist at the Arkham Mental Asylum. Behind closed doors Gordon is incensed by the move, but the mayor threatens to replace him due to his slow progress in apprehending the Batman. Gordon is forced to obey and gives Strange a task force of police led by the newly the promoted detective, Richard Grayson.

Batman returns to Wayne manor demoralized by the morning's press conference and his failure to locate the Riddler. He is greeted by Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) who dotes on him like a father. Alfred is looking older and tired. He reminds him that Bruce Wayne has been invited to the mayor's dinner party, a party where Dr. Hugo Strange will also be in attendance. At the party Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) manages to slip in, dressed as part of the wait-staff. Using the fingerprints off the Mayor's champagne glass she breaks into the private safe in his office. She steals a jeweled necklace, replacing it with a small cat statue, and then begins copying an external hard drive that is also contained in the safe. Meanwhile, Strange makes it a point to chat up Bruce Wayne, asking him some uncomfortably probing questions. To escape, Wayne leaves the room under the pretense of being drunk and needing a bathroom. Once beyond the noise of the party he discovers Selina in the mayor's office. Interrupted form her work, the two have a brief flirtatious confrontation/fight before she escapes out the window, the mayor and Gordon come in moments later to discover the break-in. They incorrectly assume that the stolen necklace had been the target. Wayne does not tell him that Selina's real purpose had been photographing the files.

Later that night Batman and Gordon meet in secret, to discuss the disappearance of the Riddler. Both agree that it is odd that the man as not yet contacted them with a clue as to his whereabouts or intentions. Gordon reveals that thanks to the mayor's influence most of the Gotham police's resources are being devoted to the hunt for Batman, and the escape of the Riddler from Arkham has barely registered. Gordon then urges Batman to let him tell the truth about the fate of Harvey Dent, but Batman once again refuses. Both are unaware that Grayson is watching them from an adjacent building. He takes the evidence to Strange. The two talk, but unbeknownst to Grayson, Strange slips something in his drink. Grayson reveals that he was orphaned after the death of his parents, and that he became a police officer because he wanted to serve justice in their memory. Strange compares his quest for justice to that of Batman's as he believes that the Dark Knight suffered a similar tragedy as a child. He also suggests that Grayson could be as good if not better than Batman, and under the hypnotics laced drink the detective begins to agree.

After Grayson leaves, Selina Kyle arrives and hands Strange the flash drive containing the photographs. The two remark that Selina did not receive all the data that Strange requested and she should keep the necklace she stole as payment. The thief balks at the offer, saying she wants what was promised her, a clean criminal record. She threatens to expose everything Strange has been doing if he fails to deliver on his agreed upon payment. Strange agrees but once she is gone he adds her name to the list of wanted criminals. Days later the bugler known as the 'Catwoman' is linked with Batman and labeled a priority target by the GCPD and the mayor's office. There have also been numerous reports of a costumed-man savagely beating criminals, with witnesses claim the attacks to be the work of Batman.

Meanwhile a dead body with a question mark carved in it, finally surfaces with a puzzle clue marking the next victim. The clues lead Batman to the Iceberg Lounge, a criminal establishment run by Oswald Copperpot (Philip Seymour Hoffman, [this was written before his untimely death]) where Wayne goes disguised as a low-level criminal named Johnny "Matches" Malone. In the midst of his investigation he gets sidetracked by Selina Kyle who he catches in the act of pickpocketing Copperpot. He saves her from discovery by asking her to dance. She refuses to explain her actions and the two are interrupted by Grayson, now dressed in a homemade outfit and calling himself Nightwing. The criminals in the lounge immediately try to take down the masked vigilante, but are soundly defeated by Grayson. In the confusion Wayne disappears and Selina flees. Grayson follows her, recognizing her as the Catwoman. As Selina tries to escape she comes across a now dead Mad Hatter, a question mark burned into his flesh, and a ticking bomb attached to his chest. Grayson ignores the threat and continues trying to fight Selina, until the arrival of Wayne, now dressed as Batman. He subdues Nightwing after a brief fight and orders him to evacuate the club. Grayson reluctantly agrees, recognizing the greater threat.

Batman and Catwoman are unable to diffuse the bomb and forced to escape as the Iceberg Lounge explodes. By this time the police have arrived, and Nightwing has disappeared. Batman and Catwoman are chased across the roofs by police helicopters and SWAT teams, but are able to shake their pursuers. Alone together on a dark roof, Selina reveals that she think Batman is a good dancer, acknowledging she saw through his disguise, and flirting with him. She also reveals that Cobblepot is working for Strange and she was trying to gather evidence to use against him. She is not certain what he is up to but for years he has been running Arkham and Blackgate as his own personal recruitment office, strategically authorizing the release of criminals to plague Batman and the Gotham police over and over again. It was the only reason she was released from prison, but she was promised a clean slate, a fresh start. When Selina turns back around Batman is gone and she is left alone on the roof.

The next morning Victor Strange is looking over the bank records and pictures that he has used to blackmail Mayor Garcia. Meanwhile he watches a TV where the mayor holds a press conference announcing that Commissioner Gordon and several other officers are suspended from the force due to their lack of commitment and possible collusion with the Batman. He also says that in light of the bombing by the super criminal known as the Riddler and the savage attacks perpetrated by the Batman, and other masked vigilantes like him, he is promoting Dr. Victor Strange to head of the GCPD and giving him full control over city resources, effectively declaring martial law until the Batman and those like him can be apprehended. The camera pulls back to reveal that Edward Nashton, The Riddler, is leaning against the wall of Strange's office. Strange tells him that he failed to kill Copperpot and now the 'Penguin' has disappeared back into the Gotham underworld. He reminds him that success was the price for his "release" from Arkham Asylum. The Riddler reminds Strange that once he has fulfilled his end of the bargain Strange will tell him the answer to the greatest riddle of them all, "Who is Batman?" Strange tells Nashton to be patient and that all will be revealed in the proper order, and that it is time to start Phase II.

Cell phones around the city ring saying nonsensical phrases. Even some video screens in downtown Gotham show the Riddler's face talking the same nonessential phrases. The video and a list of the words are spread out on the main computer in the Batcave as Batman and Alfred try to work out a pattern to the Riddler's scheme. Alfred remarks that perhaps the Riddler has become truly unhinged and has no overall motive, that he has become more like the Joker before his untimely death several years before. Batman disagrees, saying that the Riddler is always playing his own sick game and that game, no matter how far removed from reality always has rules and clear goals. Batman contacts Lucius Fox to gain access to Wayne Enterprises' satellite feeds and begins overlaying the words onto a map of the city, to discover that the clues point to several specific areas, most notably the bridges out of Gotham. 

While Batman works there is a ring at the manor's doorbell. Alfred goes upstairs to investigate and is greeted by four armed policemen. They barge into the manor and demand to search the place. Alfred argues with them saying that they need a search warrant. The cops get mean and start pushing their way through. They get close to finding the secret entrance to the Batcave as they ask to see Mr. Wayne.  Meanwhile Lucius, over the video link, tells Batman that an armed SWAT team has formed up outside of Wayne Enterprises. Batman switches over to the video cameras in the manor and sees the scene with Alfred playing out. He tells Lucius to get out and hide. Upstairs Bruce Wayne emerges, a bathrobe covering the Batsuit, and he plays it off as if he had just woken up, despite it being after lunch. The officers try to take Bruce Wayne into custody, but Alfred refuses them, saying they need a warrant. The scene gets violent and the police fire their weapons, Alfred is hit prompting Bruce Wayne to fight back, the bullets bouncing off the armor hidden beneath his bathrobe. The crooked police flee rolling a grenade back into the manor as they run. Wayne grabs Alfred and pulls him in the Batcave. The grenade explodes damaging part of the manor and the cave beneath it. As his faithful friend lays dying Bruce gets flashbacks to the night his parents died and the kindly butler who was always there to take care of him. Alfred finally reveals the truth he kept from Bruce about Rachel's intention to marry Harvey Dent, and begs him to let go of the past, and find happiness in life. Before he dies in his arms Alfred says that he could not be prouder if Bruce had been his son. Bruce responds that he is, then the old butler closes his eyes for the last time. Bruce rages, destroying more of the cave before finally collapsing in misery.

At Wayne Enterprises, Victor Strange steps off the elevator. He does not notice that one of the people in the lobby is Selina Kyle. She clutches a weapon behind her back, but waits to act. Strange is surrounded by police officers, and he begins ordering them to conduct searches of the sewers and to close off all the bridges of Gotham. The SWAT team meanwhile discovers a vault and Strange enters it alone. It is full of gadgets and spare batsuits that Fox had been keeping for Bruce Wayne. There is no sign of Lucius Fox who has slipped out via a secret exit and is helped to safety by Selina Kyle, who he convinces not to throw her life away by attacking Strange. With the police in place at the bridges, the Riddler sets off his bombs, destroying all the entrances and exits into Gotham City, and trapping even more police in the sewers of Gotham. The only police left are the ones hired and recruited by Strange himself, which he uses as a personal army. He also releases the Arkham and Blackgate prisoners (disguised as a prison break) who quickly carve up Gotham for their own.

Several days later there has been no sign of Batman. Many assume he is dead. Gotham becomes divided into territories controlled by various villains including Killer Croc, Black Mask, the Penguin, and Scarecrow. Other supervillians can be glimpsed during the scenes of destruction ravaging the city. The Riddler sets up a game show like courtroom where he tries the wealthy and the powerful, giving them riddles that they must answer to save their lives. The citizens of Gotham protest and try to rise up but are put down by Strange's police. Commissioner Gordon and his small band of police heroically fight back. The force now includes Dick Grayson who was saved by Gordon from being killed by a girl costumed like the late Joker and calling herself the Harlequin, (Kristen Bell.) Gotham is in chaos, cut off from the outside world, the mayor is dead, and Victor Strange is effectively in charge.

Grayson confronts Strange saying that he no longer believes Batman to be a villain and that he is regretful for the things that he did as the Nightwing. Strange tries to offer him another drink but Grayson refuses knocking the drink away and exposing the drug that Strange had been using to alter his perception. A concoction of the Scarecrow's, Strange admits. He also tells the young detective the truth about Batman and Harvey Dent that he had uncovered in his own interviews and investigation into the matter, that Batman is in fact innocent. He then tries to have Grayson killed but he's saved by Selina Kyle who helps him escape. The two then meet up with Lucius Fox, who brings them to the Batcave.

After walking through a torn up and bombed out Wayne manor, there the trio find Bruce Wayne brooding in the cave below, mourning the loss of the last person who ever cared for him. "I've protected so many people, but it's always the people I love that pay the price." While Lucius and Grayson explore the cave and fix what they can, Selina and Bruce share a tender moment where she tells him of how she grew up on the street after losing her mother, and that her mother's memory inspires her even today, as the loss of his parents inspired him. Yet he doesn't need to live in the shadow of loss, because as long as you continue you give their life meaning and by extension the life of those who loved them. The two share a kiss in the dark and then Bruce helps lift a beam off the Batpod, symbolically soldiering on. Grayson fills him in on what has been happening in Gotham, and Bruce says that in order to fight for justice they must be symbols of it.

Commissioner Gordon meanwhile is captured by the Riddler and his courtroom. Gordon is bombarded with riddles, but the most common one asked is "Who is Batman?" Gordon claims he doesn't know and the Riddler counters that Gordon is a competent detective, how could he not have discovered the secret, after all he has been allied with Batman for almost a decade. Gordon admits that he never investigated the mystery and even actively hindered other police who tried doing so. Grayson, dressed as Nightwing, saves Gordon as the commissioner once saved him. He defeats the Riddler by telling him the secret identity of Batman and answering his riddle, but by doing so he says that the Riddler has lost, because he couldn't figure out the answer himself. Nightwing also proves that the Riddler can't tell anyone the secret because if he does he will forever ruin the riddle. This drives Edward Nashton further insane, reducing him to a babbling incoherent mess, easily apprehended by the very police he had been keeping hostage.

Meanwhile Catwoman and Batman assault the Gotham Police Station where Strange is. They flirt over their radios while doing do. Catwoman driving the Batcycle creates a distraction and lets Batman sneak in from the roof. He finds Strange below, where once he sat as a small boy, a young police man named Gordon draping a coat over his shoulders. Strange's voice floats up out of the darkened and empty rooms, calling him Bruce Wayne. He explains that he deduced his identity through profiling and through several sessions with Coleman Reese (Joshua Harto) the former Wayne Enterprises accountant after he was mysteriously driven insane, which Strange implies he was responsible for. He also claims he has told no one, as he wanted to meet the Batman for himself.

Strange finally appears in person. He is wearing one of the batsuits, without the cowl, he recovered from the Applied Science division at Wayne Enterprises. He says that now that he has met Batman he has found him wanting and believes that he could a better job ridding Gotham of its filth than Bruce Wayne ever could. Once Bruce is dead Strange will clean up the streets and the city of Gotham will regard him as their hero, all the while he can control the criminal element. The two men fight. They seem evenly matched, especially with Strange wearing a bat suit using the spare gadgets he recovered from the secret vault in Lucius Fox's labs. During the fight the crooked police outside find themselves being assaulted not just by Catwoman but the people of Gotham, led by Gordon and Nightwing.

The battle between Strange and Batman comes to a climax when Strange manages to stab Bruce in the belly with a knife. Bruce collapses in pain as Strange taunts that he is stronger and smarter. Injustice cannot be stopped it can only be controlled through power. He taunts Bruce that he is a broken child, fighting for ghosts, trying to fill the gap of loss, to add meaning to a meaningless world. "You are beaten, Wayne." Meanwhile Batman drags himself to a pile of riot gear left abandoned by the police who formerly occupied the station. "Why do we fall, Strange? So we can learn to get back up." He pulls the pin on a smoke grenade filling the room with smoke. Strange panics unable to see and breath and this time it is Batman's turn to taunt him from the shadows, refuting the claims of Strange, saying life has meaning as long as we keep fighting. His words also tie the three movies together in a short yet inspirational speech which sums up the trilogy's meaning. In desperation, Strange opens a window to clear out the smoke, but it is too late. Batman is there, standing before him. He lands a vicious strike and Strange stumbles backwards out the window, landing with a crash on a police car below. he gives one last gasp of air then dies.

The fight in the streets come to a stop as people see Strange, now lying dead in front of them, dressed as Batman. Catwoman and Nightwing look up to the roof and the real Batman is standing there. He lights the old bat signal on top of the building to remind the criminals that Gotham is protected. A few people on the street catch sight of him before he disappears back into the shadows.

The story of Batman's innocence in the Harvey Dent murder is finally revealed by James Gordon during a press conference, after he is is reinstated as commissioner. The remaining criminals are rounded up thanks to the help of Nightwing who is being touted as a hero of the city. Order is eventually restored. Many people believe Batman is dead. The movie ends with Batman talking to Gordon on the roof of the police station. "You won't be seeing me again, Jim, but Gotham will always be protected." As Batman talks scenes show Grayson donning his new outfit and exploring the Batcave. "Who are you?" ask Gordon, but Batman replies that it doesn't matter. It never mattered, because Batman is not a person but an idea to inspire the good and scare the criminal. Anyone and everyone can be a hero, even if it is something as insignificant as giving your coat to a little boy in need. As Batman talks we watch scenes of Alfred's funeral attended by Lucius, Bruce, Selina, and Grayson. The camera centers on Grayson who looks down at the modest grave then back toward the manor. When he looks over Bruce and Selina are gone. In the last scene we seem in his costume standing on top of a building reminiscent of Bruce in Dark Knight, he looks out over Gotham. The voice over ends and the movie cuts to black.


The ending definitely needs work, but this is the kind of movie I would have loved to see. What do you think? What improvements would you have made?

Metaphoric Exercise: Karma

Sometimes when I'm bored at work, I engage myself in stupid writing exercises... I know, I'm a nerd... Since I haven't had a lot of time to write a blog entry this week, I decided to share one of my latest exercises. Sometimes I like to take an abstract concept and a random object and do my best to link them through metaphor. Usually it is something I am looking at out a window or something sitting on my desk. It's a good way to keep my writing muscles flexed on weeks when I do less writing than I would like.

KARMA

Karma is a dog, bitten by fleas and hysterical because of it. It lashes out at the hand that hits it, as often as the hand that feeds it. It’s matted brown and white hair is caked with the tears of the unjust and the blood of the righteous. Sometimes we put it on a leash and call it domesticated, but much like a wolf in a dog park, we can never truly trust it. It will never truly belong to anyone nor can anyone call it master. It’s eyes glow in the darkness or the light, never sleeping, always stalking. It watches you as you wander blissfully down the street, all the while ignoring the old man begging for money on the corner. You may look the other way, but the flea-bitten bitch never will.

Karma is the color black. It sucks in all the light around it, giving nothing back in return, except misery and despair. No light escapes it, it is the absence of one thing, yet it is the presence of something else. Drop a little of it into any color and it will darken even the lightest, turning white to gray, pink to maroon, and a noontime sky to the darkest moonless midnight. It is not inherently evil. Instead, it is a tool, like a hammer, or a force of nature like the unforgiving justice of pollution. It takes and it gives in equal measure. It corrupts and highlights. It is balance. The text upon a page would not be visible if their black ink was not illuminated against the untouched snow of the paper. Karma is black. It is friend and foe, the absence of color, and the meshing of all colors. It is the atmosphere of nightmares and the canvas for the starry artistry of the universe.

Karma is coffee. It burns the tongues of the unwary. it is a thick steaming dark liquid caffeine capable of giving you a shot in the arm of validation or a wet burning lap of justice. Found on almost any street corner, any supermarket, or in any house, big or small, rich or poor, British or American, its tastes vary, but it remains coffee nonetheless. Its flavors are as plentiful as the stars in the sky and the peoples of the Earth. Most prefer it hot, with a quick validation, and that is how it is best recognized. Yet, others prefer it cold, believing that is the way it is best served.

Karma is my fingers upon the keyboard, fat and awkward muddling their way through, corrupting my words, changing my intentions, enhancing my messages. The mistakes are obvious and glaring, but when working properly, the finesse goes unnoticed. Success is seamless, the words upon the page appearing as if they had always belonged there, like pillars of stone upon a mountain.There is no question as to how those words were created. We assume they had always been there and always will. When Karma works it's undetectable, like oxygen. Only when we stub our toe is the invisible force made real and powerful and terrible. Only do I notice the fatness of my fingers when I mkae the misatkes that so fsutrate me.

Karma is Idaho. It sits in the middle of everything untouched by the oceans of civilization, yet somehow dependent upon it for their potato crop of justice.

Karma is like Google, it is a big unfathomable concept, that knows way too much about me. It is intrusive as it is reliable. It judges my actions and directs me to addresses it believes I should go. It is innovative, creative, and a gigantic convienent-loving, cuddly, big brother. Whether we know it or not, it controls the world, no matter how much we want to deny it. It has it darker aspects and technical difficulties, but much of that remains hidden to me. I must blindly trust in it's power, whether used fairly or not. I fear its power, yet I need it nonetheless.

Float

"Oxygen levels, seven percent," said the tinny emotionless voice.

Two days since the accident. Two days, since the death of the crew. Sometimes I can almost see a face, soft and warm with red lips like roses, and the greenest eyes of spring lawn. A man could lie in them for hours and forget the world. A man could almost feel the grass blades between bare toes, and the cool nighttime breeze across goose-pimpled skin, like when I was a kid, left to lay for hours gazing at the stars.

The stars, I could never get enough of them, sitting outside till I was dragged to bed. The irony has not escaped even my oxygen starved brain. I suppose the universe does have a sense of humor. Those stars will be the last thing I ever see. Still, they are beautiful.

The sky outside rotates slowly, an endless cycle of glittering diamonds. The explosion that kicked me clear must have sent me into a spin, slow enough to not be dizzying, but fast enough that I can trace the movements of constellations across my viewplate. I have become a world unto myself, small and alone, floating through the void and surrounded by billions of tiny reminders of light and possibility. Some are known to me and others still deeply unfamiliar. If only I had an eternity to unlock their secrets, but I am down to about four hours.

Hair as soft as silk and as dark as the endless void, it smelled of lunch meat, but that was only in the morning. The kids used to laugh as we played rocketship, while she made their lunch. I can almost see her face. It floats before me, obscured and distorted, like a figure trapped under the ice, kicking and screaming for air. It's gone. I'm alone.

The only thing real anymore is the groan of my stomach, louder than before. The only image I can hold is the tube of paste I ate for breakfast so many days ago. I think it was banana. It tasted like metal. They always tasted like metal. I'm thirsty, but not like "I just ran five-miles thirsty," just "I could use a drink" thirsty. A beer would be nice. The saline indicator on my helmet is below zero. The emergency supply ran out hours ago, or days ago. I cannot remember the difference anymore.

Saturn is rising across my field of vision. Its rings are back-lit by the sun and the powdery blue dust that surrounds the god-planet's rings are shining like a thin wire of razor, beautiful and bright. It gives the whole planet the illusion of a motion faster than any purported by science. The great orb is like a spinning top on a whirling axis, and in the distance a bright blue dot, home.

Home is not a place, it's a feeling, it's family. Whenever you think of us, you'll be home. The words come distant and half-remembered. My father spoke them on the day I left for college or was it the academy. He was dead now, and when I think of his face I see nothing. I feel only the cold in my fingertips. I never even made it home for the funeral, a six month mission in space made it an impossibility.

"I'm sorry, Dad."

Never say you're sorry for that which is beyond your control. I was always proud of you, son. This time the voice seemed stronger, more present. Was it in my head? Was it my imagination? Did the shortwave communication system just come to life? It's not possible. There is no one within a billion kilometers. I'm delusional.

"Oxygen levels, five percent."

The flames, the rush of air, the silence. I come awake with a start from the half remembered dream, or was it a half-dreamt memory. Saturn is in full view. Even at this distance it dwarfs everything. Distantly, I hope I get to see it one more time, before I finally let go.

Hold on, son. Hold on to life, because as long as you draw breath there is hope. I remember when he first said that me. I can still hear his voice echoing from below, through the winter trees. We were camping and I had slipped from a tree limb. I had climbed too high. The limbs were too weak to support me. I was trying to reach something, but the goal itself is beyond memory. Only the climb remains.

Hope is everything. Never lose it. This time the comm indicator sprang to life. The words weren't imagined. They were real, spoken over the shortwave.

"Dad?" my voice is raw and cracked. It hurts to speak, but it would be maddening to stay silent. "Dad, is that you? Where are you?" 

The only reply is my own breathing. I am beginning to slip. I know the isolation has taken its toll. Hypothermia is beginning to set in. The suit's internal life support is slowly shutting down, like a deer succumbing to the snow and frost, stumbling ignorantly towards its cold lonely end.

"Oxygen level, three percent."

I wake. "Dad." I don't know if I screamed it. It's hard to gauge how loud something truly is inside a helmet of plastic and metal. I struggle to get control of my flailing limbs. They no longer feel like part of my body. They no longer feel like flesh, just wood, nothing more than useless branches attached to a dying and forgotten tree.

I remember his eyes. They were bluer than the sky, bluer than the icicles that used to form on our garage.

I'm here, son. I have always been here with you. The LED indicators on my helmet are dead. There is no way of verifying the transmission source, but I know it is a transmission all the same. Saturn is gone now, replaced again with the endless ocean of stars.

"How is this possible?"

Moments fade, even memories die away, but love remains. Suddenly, there is light and color and I can see his face. A distant memory, I must have been very young. He still has his hair and that stupid mustache, but the same toothy grin.

"You're not here. You're dead. Gone." I close my eyes and the light fades. Only the stars remain, eternal and fixed.

Everything must end. Even the stars are not forever. Their light is older than we can imagine. Most are dead even as they shine down on us. He was older now. His face shaded beneath the nighttime sky, only half facing me. His eyes are transfixed on something above us.

"Dead." I let the word hang there. Maybe for the first time I truly begin to question the meaning of the word. Death, the concept seems almost beyond the scope of imagining, if not understanding. How can just four letters hold so much meaning and so much abstraction?

"Oxygen level, two percent," says the computer as if in rebuttal to my musings, but even its voice of certainty is beginning to grow slow with the frost. I never considered what might happen to that voice. It will die with me, without ever having been alive. For some reason the thought saddens me. Man and machine will meet their end together.

But just because something ends, doesn't mean it goes away. Look at the stars. Even after they have disappeared from the universe their light continues to shine. They continue to inspire and drive us. They are still beautiful. So why does death need to be any different? I could almost feel his hand on my shoulder as we stood before the casket of my mother. His face was blurry again, but only because I watched him through tears.

"You're not here. There is no life after death. No heaven or hell." Such fantasies were sweet lies told to children to give comfort in times of grief. I know that. I'm a scientist and I know what happens to a person after death. their neural pathways shut down, their body stops pumping blood. Their cells starve for oxygen. They die, nothing less and nothing more. There is no light. Their isn't even a tunnel.

My son, the scientist. You know so much. What do you know? Nothing. Quantum mechanics, string theory, dark energy? His face is angry this time, distorted somewhere between rage and pity. Fancy words to mean that for as much as you think you know, you still know nothing. Maybe God isn't in the sky. Maybe he's in us, tangled in the places between quarks, or unseen in the fifth, or sixth, or even thirteenth dimension? What if he is speaking to us now through the vibrations of a quantum string or calling to us through cosmic radiation?

"There is no God. We live. We die." My mouth moves mechanically, rehashing the old argument. Yet, now the words just feel cold in my mouth, as if they too have been frozen by the void around me.

What good is your science if it only dashes hope? Hope is everything.

"We're dead particles, brought to life for a brief second through a freak accident of nature. Dust to dust and ash to ash."

Stardust and cosmic ash, perhaps. Those particles were forged in stars, created at the beginning of time itself. We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. There is a spark of the cosmos in us and that is no accident. We are part of something greater. How can that mean nothing?

"I miss you, Dad."

"Oxygen level, one percent." The hum of the air filters quiets. I had grown so accustomed to them I didn't even realize they were still on. Now there is truly no sound. All the suit's systems are dead, and I'm not far behind. My eyes feel heavy. I close them to rest, if only for a moment

Death is nothing to fear. Take it from a dead man.

"I want to believe you. I wish you were here."

I am always with you. If space and time are one, then do any of us truly ever exist, ever truly stop existing? Maybe we never really go away. Maybe we are always here, like faint echoes bouncing around the great vastness.

"Even after you're dead you're still lecturing me." I try to put the joke to my voice, but it comes out flat especially in the lonely dome of my helmet.

Only trying to show you the way. Like a light from a long-gone star.

What if the voice was right? Time is an illusion tethered by gravity, and if there is one thing I am lacking, it's gravity. Then why am I so short on time too? I open my eyes. Saturn has returned and I can almost feel it smiling down on me, like an eternal deity. Then, I remember my mythology. My father would have laughed. Saturn is the god of time.

I wait, but the voice says no more. Real or imagined, it's gone. The only sound is my shallow breathing. It's getting harder to draw breath. Each slow gasp seems more unsatisfactory than the last, almost painful, but those are distant sensations. My body seems suddenly unimportant, because all I see, is my god.

Eddie

Picture courtesy (sort of) of Graham Smith

The small beams of light tickle as they hit me. I laugh, but the little man just keeps pointing his gun and firing like it’s going to do something. When I reach him, that’s when the fun begins. I grab the small space weapon and I feel it crunch under my fist along with his fingers.

I let go. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I never want to hurt anyone, but I always do. It’s just part of being who I am. You get used to it, I guess, but the guy just keeps crying and screaming about his broken hand. The rest of the bar is starting to look now and the tiny man is on his knees begging me not to kill him.

I don’t do that, at least not anymore.

I reach down and pick him up by his silvery backpack and toss him through the front the door of the bar. I wouldn’t want JJ getting mad for annoying his other customers. Of course, JJ never gets mad at me. He just gets disappointed, and that’s always worse.

I walk outside and the spaceman is slumped up against the wall of the building across the alley. I hadn’t meant to throw him that hard. He doesn’t look like he’s moving.

I bend down next to him and I hear the door open behind me. “Leave him, sugah. He’ll be fine.”

“He’s not moving,” I say in that lumbering way that seems too slow, even to myself.

Georgia kneels down next to me. When she leans forward to unhook the man’s space helmet, I notice I can see down the front part of her shirt. I look away. I don’t want to be rude.

“He’s only stunned,” says Georgia. She has her fingers on the man’s neck. “He’s still breathing.” She stands up. “For heaven’s sake, Edward, you got to learn to worry less about good-for-nothing-scum like Retro Rocket, here. He deserves a lot worse than this.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him…” I say, feeling frustrated.

“Don’t give me that bull, sugah. You used to run for the Atello crime family. I’m sure you hurt plenty of people worse than this back in the bygone days.”

“That was a long time ago. I was just doing what I was told to do.”

“Oh, now there, there, don’t get all defensive,” she pats me on the shoulder like a child, but it does feel nice. “I only meant we’ve all done things in the past we regret. Trust me I got enough regrets to fill a grain silo the size of Arkansas. Now, come back inside, sugah.”

I look back at the spaceman.

“He’ll be fine,” she leads me back into the bar by the hand. “He just needs to sleep it off.”

Georgia was right, because when I went out later to check on him, he was gone. He must have flown off using that stupid jetpack of his. She was always right, and she was always decent to me. I like Georgia, but she didn’t seem to like that spaceman. After we went back inside the bar, she said something about how he liked small boys a bit too much. That seemed strange to me. I mean like boys and girls and puppies, though they tend to not like me. I guess I am kind of scary looking.

Georgia was right about something else too. I did used to hurt people, a lot. That was when they called me Two-Ton. I hate that name, but my brother gave it to me. Well, he wasn’t really my brother but we grew up together in the orphanage. We stuck together because we were both born “different.” His real name was Carlos, but most people called him Stone, on account he could turn his body to rock.

Carlos was the smart one. He watched out for me, and told me what to do. We made a group together, that we call The Heavies. We worked for a lot of people and did a lot of bad things, but Carlos always said it was for the best. “We were just earning a living,” he’d tell me, but then he up and died. So, I had to go to work for the Atello family.

Mr. Atello, he liked it when people called him Don but that wasn’t his name, said Carlos was killed by a rival crime family because he was late. At the time I didn’t know what he meant, because I was always late to get to places, and Carlos was always the one waiting on me. I’m very slow. I understood later that Mr. Atello meant Carlos had been killed because he owed some very bad people a lot of money.

So, with my brother gone I had nowhere to go. Mr. Atello gave me a job, but it wasn’t like working with Carlos. The Atelloes didn’t treat me nicely at all. They always called me names, just like the kids in the orphanage used to do. They always wanted me to hurt people too, even to kill people. I did it, but I didn’t like it. Mr. Atello's favorite was when he had me squeeze people till they didn’t move anymore.

It was the only life I knew till I met JJ. The Atello family wanted him to pay something called protection, for his bar, but JJ refused. Mr. Atello said I needed to teach him a lesson, but it was JJ who taught me the lesson. He showed me a better way. I know it sounds kind of sappy, but it’s true. Then he offered me a job. I still have to hurt people sometimes, but usually they deserve it.

I always thought that it’s kind of funny how you get reminded of a thing and then it keeps popping up over and over again in one day. It was like the time when I was telling JJ how much I liked peanut butter and on that same day I found half a peanut butter sandwich waiting for me in the backroom. JJ called it good luck, but today it wasn’t good at all. It was bad, very bad luck.

It happened when I was outside checking people waiting to get into the bar. I have a list of people I am supposed to watch out for. Most of the time I am looking for any villains that have been banned by JJ, but sometimes I have to make sure no one is a superhero or some kind of cop. JJ says letting them in will make the customers nervous, “and when these customers get nervous that’s when things go bad,” he always says, but I’ve messed up a few times. I’m fine with admitting that.

One time I let this gumshoe in because he was dressed up like a giant honey bee or something with a black mask. He started taking pictures for some court case, and when the other customers figured out who he was, they almost killed him. I was able to stop them, but not before they had beat him to a pulp. I had to carry him to the hospital and leave him in the emergency room. I felt bad about just leaving him, but JJ said it was for the best.

Now the list JJ gives me has pictures of the people I am not supposed to let in. It helps. A lot of people try to disguise themselves to look like something else, but I’m really decent at recognizing faces. I hardly ever let the wrong people in these days.

One of those people I’m not supposed to let in is Antonio “The Painter,” Atello. He’s Mr. Atello’s son and he’s a certifiable psychopath. Someone once told me they call him Painter because he likes to paint walls red.

“Well if it isn’t Too-Dumb,” says Painter as he walks up to the door. The two men standing behind him in suits start laughing as if it is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. I hate that name even more than Two-Ton.

“I’m not supposed to let you in. JJ wouldn’t like it.”

“Forget that old has-been, Eddie. I’ve come to talk to you. My old man’s not feeling too well these days, you know.”

“Mr. Atello is sick?”

“Not sick enough,” says Painter. “I’m next in line to take over the family business…”

“Not if Vinnie the Octopus has anything to say about it,” says one of the men behind him.

"Would ya shut-up,” says Painter. It looks like he is going to hit the man, but instead he puts his arm around me, well as much as he can reach. “Listen, Eddie, I know you and me haven’t always been pals, but I could use a man like you in my new operation. You have a particular set of talents that I always valued. Who knows you might even become a made-man one day, if you play your cards right.”

“I work for JJ now,” I say proud of my new job, but I Painter still make me nervous. Most people called him unpredictable. Sometimes he’d be your best pal, then sometimes he’d be your worst nightmare. You never knew what mood he was going to be in.

“C’mon, it’ll be just you and me, Eddie, all the way to the top, once my old man is out of the picture. In fact, I was hoping you could help with that too. Dear old dad isn’t feeling quite himself, but the doctors say there is a chance he might recover. Now if a certain old disgruntled ex-employee were to pick this moment to exact his revenge…” he put his finger to my chest. “Such an occurrence might all but ensure my place at the top. Once I’m there, I’ll make sure you’ll be there right with me. I promise.”

“I’m done with that kind of work. I don’t hurt people like that anymore…”

“Suddenly you’re going soft on me? Who cares about the old man? Think about it, Eddie, my father’s not a very nice person. He deserves this. Then it’ll be just you and me.”

I hesitate. “I don’t know, Painter…”

“I thought I told you never to come around here.” The door to the bar swings shut and JJ is standing there looking angry. He’s using his cane today because he said the cold weather was making his leg stiffen up.

“Beat it, pops.” Painter laughs. “This is between me and my old friend, here.”

“Edward, I need your help bringing a new keg out from back. Gill broke the handcart again.” JJ looked at me as if he expected me to come inside with him.

I start to move, but Painter puts his arm in front of me. I obediently stop and put my head down. I can’t look at JJ.

“You want to spend the rest of your life working as some sort of glorified doorman in a dive bar that caters to lunatics in costumes or do you want to make something of yourself.” He rubs his fingers together. “I’m talking big cash, Eddie. Stick with me and you can afford the finer things in life.”

“There’s nothing fine about where that life leads. I’m not going to let you bring him back down this path again.”

“What’re you going to do about it, throw a calendar at me?” Painter shakes as if he’s scared, but I think he’s just pretending. Then he starts laughing at JJ. I want to say something, but I’ve never been able to stand up to Painter. He was always so scary.

“You’re a spoiled child who cares more about getting his own way then the consequences of his actions. One way or another that will catch up to you, and I won’t let you drag Edward down with you,” says JJ quietly. His eyes have this look like I’ve never seen before. It makes me feel cold inside.

“Choose your words carefully, old man. I don’t take no disrespect from anyone, especially senior citizens such as yourself. You don’t want to see what I do to guys who cross me. They say I’m crazy, you know.”

“I’ve known plenty of people like you in my day. You claim to like the mayhem, the chaos of it all, but it’s a cover. The truth is that you’d rather burn the world than face it. You’d rather kill your own father rather than confront him. When you come right down to it, you’re nothing but a coward.”

Painter is suddenly angry, so angry that he turns red. “Teach this has-been a lesson.”

One of Painter’s guys takes out a small club and laughs as he walks toward JJ, but he stops laughing when JJ’s cane breaks his teeth. Then even as he’s cursing JJ uses his cane to knock him from his feet. He places the end of it on the man’s chest and presses some kind of button. Painter’s goon screams again, like he’s being shocked by electricity.

“I had this cane built special for…” The gunshot is so loud in the alley that it hurts my ears.

 

JJ falls to ground, and blood is starting to stain the sleeve of his flannel shirt. I start to move toward him to check if he is okay, but painter’s voice stops me.

“Stay right where you are, Too-Dumb.” He’s still pointing his gun at JJ. “Actually take a few steps back.”

I don’t know what to do. I wish Georgia would come outside, she would know what to do, but she doesn’t. JJ once told me he had the walls of the bar soundproofed so no one outside would be able to hear what was going on inside. I guess it works the other way around too. No one inside heard the gun shot.

I look at Painter. Part of me want’s to rip his head from his shoulders. Instead, I step away from him and JJ. I can’t stand up to Painter. No one ever could.

“That’s a good monster,” he says. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pay my father a visit and afterwards, I better hear that he ain’t breathing no more. I don’t care if you shoot him or hug him to death, but I want him dead, because if he ain’t…” Painter motions with his gun at JJ. “He will be. Coppice?”

“No…”

“I’m not playing.” He takes a step toward JJ and cocks the gun. “That first bullet just grazed him. I won’t miss a second time. You know I don’t miss, or at least your old friend knows I don’t miss… What was his name, Juan?”

“Carlos?”

“That’s it. He was in some heavy debt to us. Normally we’d just break a guy’s legs if he owed us that much money, but with your buddy’s powers my father thought it was just better to cut our losses and make an example out of him.”

“You killed Carlos?” I look at JJ still lying on the alley pavement and I think about what it felt like to lose my brother. I don’t want to lose JJ too. They say I’m slow to do most things and that includes getting angry, but not this time. I feel my fists tighten so hard that they’re shaking. Suddenly, it starts to get hard to see anything else but Painter, and I don’t feel afraid of him anymore.

I don’t think he even notices as he keeps talking. “My first shot took your friend in the head. He never even saw me. I couldn’t give him the chance to turn into that rock form of his, now could I? Now, I’m going to do the same to your new boss, unless…”

I run at Painter and now it’s his turn to be scared. He points his gun at me and starts firing. The bullets tickle as they hit me. I ignore them. I am usually so slow, but now I move faster than even I thought I could. I grab the gun and most of Painter’s hand. I squeeze till I hear something break and he starts screaming. It’s the second time I’ve broken someone’s hand that day, but this time I don’t feel so bad. I toss him against the alley wall with a yell. Part of the brick crumbles when he hits.

His last goon in the suit drops his own gun and holds up his hands. “I weren’t thinking of doing nothing,” he says as he helps up the man JJ took down. Together they run off down the alley leaving Painter where he is.

“Are you okay, JJ?” I ask JJ as he stands up.

“It’s a scratch.” He picks up his cane. “Take your friend over there and put him in the dumpster behind Constantine’s Bakery on the corner of 8th and Helios. It’s owned by Vinnie the Octopus. I’m sure he’ll be very interested in the discovery one of his employees makes tonight when they go out back to dump the stale bagels.”

“Okay, JJ.”

“And, Edward,” he hesitates as he opens the bar door, “hurry back. I still need help with that keg.”

 

Bravo Flight

I have not been keeping up with my blogging lately, mostly because I have become consumed by my planning next book. I am delving way out of my comfort zone to play fighter pilot in a sem-realistic future world. I have been doing a lot of reasearch not only on aviation and future aviation but on terms, structure, and other basic aspects of military life. I still have a lot more to do before I can come close to even beginning work on my first story draft, but to get a feel I wrote a small test chapter. I have included a portion of it in this post. I would very much appreciate any feedback or ideas people might have as I launch myself head first into the brand new and exciting project.

 

Picture courtesy of ~Lung2005
at Deviantart

"Look alive, squad. Hostiles, 400-k and closing, 9-low." The voice brought Mason out of his own thoughts. The targeting computer on the HUD in his flight helmet immediately registered the enemy aircraft as they came into sensors range, appearing as red triangles against a green background.

"9 o'clock?" responded a disembodied voice from the other end of his earpiece. "I don't get up before 11."

"Cut the talk, Seven," came the clipped British response. "Five, control your flight."

"Yes, sir," said Mason.

"Assigning targets."

Mason watched as a red circle flared to life around one of the small triangles on the HUD. Simultaneously a double red circle appeared on the main display of his helmet, outlining a firing corridor that led to his assigned hostile. He held down the confirm switch on his flight-stick and dub-blinked on the radar hit to set the lock. A satisfying deep baritone hum sang in his ear as the computer system acknowledged the lock. "Locked," he called out.

The phrase repeated seven more times across the board as the men and women in the formation around him found their own targets.

"Breach," the single word floated to him through his headset as if spoken by some voice of his own imagining.

For a sureal moment the most distant part of his mind registered that the speaker of the word was not American. Too much little emphasis was put on the "ea" sound of the word. Ever since he was a kid Mason had always been amazed how different people could look at even a single word and come up with so many different ways of saying it.

The more active part of his mind only registered the command and the implied action. "Fox 3," he called out as he slammed home the firing button on his stick. The cockpit below his feet rumbled as the missile doors opened. The delay between pressing the button and the rewarding ignition of the missile had always irked him. Realistically, he knew that his payload had to stay concealed below the airframe to maintain the craft's stealth profile, but instinctually Mason had always wanted more of a one-to-one response, like how it was in the video games he grew up playing. Maybe that's why pilots had joking come to call the delay Server Lag.

The time between trigger and ignition was in actuality less than a second of time, and finally Mason heard the AMRAAM roar to life. It streaked away trailing a brilliant blue jet of flame and joined a flock of its brethren as they too emerged from the bellys of the craft around him.

Their targets, Dragon-24 Hōshō aircraft, didn't stand a chance. They were more than ten years out of date, they could barely be called gen-7 fighters. Their SD sensors had no way of warning their pilots of the danger they were in until it was too late. Mason's own craft the FX-42 Archangel was top of the line gen-7 tech. It was never going to be a fair fight. You almost never saw a Hōshō in the air anymore, except in training simulations.

All eight hostiles scrambled. Their signals blurring momentarily on the HUD as the craft activated their SHIELD systems to try and fool the locks, but their pilots might as well have been trying to ward off the missiles with prayer. Five craft vaporized under the salvo, one was clipped but maintained and two managed to evade. Mason's own target was nothing but scrap and ash.

He wondered if the pilot had managed to eject. He always wondered that. Mason never thought of himself as a killer, but that was only because air combat was so impersonal. It was easy to blow up a piece of technology, it was hard to remember that there was a person inside it. He hoped that the pilot had managed to bail, he always did.

The three remaining hostiles turned tail and dodged out, one limping away on only one engine.

"Locked," said a voice in his head.

"Stand down," Mason said. "Six, stand down."

"I'm not going to just let them get away." The voice was female and had a hard edge to it. He found no noticeable accent to her voice, most likely American. He could only barely place her face, with only a vague memory of dark long hair drawn tightly into a pony-tail.

"Stand-down, six." Mason put an edge to his own voice. He had been put in charge of Bravo Flight and he wasn't about to let some pilot's frantic ambition endanger the outlines of the mission parameters. He knew the commander was the listening. "You're not cleared to fire."

"Aye, sir." The response was terse, spoken through gritted teeth. He could almost hear her thumb ease up off the firing switch.

He let out a breath he had not known he was holding. The reprieve was brief.

His cockpit went wild as a screaming tone wailed inside his head. The HUD flashed red and the main display began a quick succession of calculations that ended in a growing red dot at the edge of his peripheral. Even as he turned his head to watch the small crimson pixel it grew in size, soon becoming a discernible circle against the blue backdrop of sky.

"I'm painted red!"

"Ghosts, bloody piss."

"Missile lock. Missile lock. "

"I'm red!"

The in-line channel was full of chatter.

The clipped British commands of the squadron leader were lost among the chaos of the other ILC transmissions. The words came so fast the calls began stepping on each other, like a frantic crowd of people clawing over one another to escape a fire, but there was no escape. So there was just panic.

"Scatter!" someone called, and Mason watched as the neat, orderly formation began to break up. Aircraft banked and dove, trying everything they could to shake the lock. It was every man for himself, every woman for herself. The terror was contagious and the more hysterical some pilots became the more the group as a whole began to feel the effects.

Waves of electromagnetic energy washed over Mason's instruments, momentarily scrambling them, as one or two of his more panicked squadron mates began to prematurely activate their SHIELDs.

All the while the small circle of his own incoming missile had grown to the size of a shirt button. 300-k and closing. Mason fought to keep his own panic in check. The memory of a plan swimming up out of the murky depths of his mind. "Cease alarm." The insistent blaring tone instantly died.

"Bravo flight on me," he said switching from squadron channel to flight channel. He could do nothing for the full group, but calming three voices as opposed to eleven was a lot easier.

"On your six," came the immediate and surprisingly calm American female voice.

"On your wing," said another heavily accented voice Mason had not recalled hearing before.

"Hell, if we're going to die, we might as well do it as a family," said Seven, his faint Aussie accent suddenly clear. The last craft tucked itself almost effortlessly behind his right wing.

"We're not going to die," said Mason in a voice that radiated a calm he did not, in fact, feel. His own hand was shaking so hard on the flight stick it was a surprise that his craft wasn't swaying wildly back and forth.

200-k and closing fast. The circle was now the size of an egg. The details of the missile clear beneath it.

"Follow the leader," called Mason and swung his angel around, pulling hard on the yoke. For a moment the word was sideways, the growing red circle on his helmet appearing on the solid metal flooring of the cockpit. Slamming the stick forward he put his craft into a steep dive toward the deck, his fellow pilots only a few hundred meters behind him, the world was plummeting up to meet them.

He risked a quick glance at his HUD Radar. It showed all four missiles less bearing down at less than 100-k. All round him the blue marks that had once represented the other members of his squadron were winking out of existence, their cries of help silenced one by one on the squadron wide frequency. With his tail to the chaos he could only image the sight of their fiery defeat.

He put the images from his mind. "Climb and SHIELD, only on my mark." His voice strained from the G's pushing him back in his flight cushion. The inertial compensators were practically screaming, but he wasn't done yet.

The forests of the pacific northwest had filled the view of his cockpit, but a quick glance behind him showed that the red circle had grown to grapefruit proportions. It was less than 45-k and still closing. Mason waited only another second, daring not to hesitate any longer.

"Mark," he screamed and pulled up on the stick. His vision blurred only slightly before his flight suit constricted, stemming the blood loss from his head. The warning lights flared to life again. The angel's onboard smart computer was compensating his maneuver, easing the sudden jerking movement out over a softer arc to protect the integrity of the airframe, but even with the unwanted interference it was less than a second before blue sky had once again replaced his view of the deep green forest.

He locked his gaze at a switch in the forward controls of the cockpit. The flight stick was still fighting him, he couldn't risk removing his hands for even a second. Instead, his dub-blinked on the switch. It immediately lit up blue, as the computer acknowledge his selection. "Activate," he said, and the node when from turquoise to emerald.

Over the rushing sound of wind and air friction against his cockpit he never heard the SHIELD's electromagnetic pulse activate, but he felt its effects as they rocked his craft and sent static across his instruments. A countdown timer appeared on the side of his helmet. Thirty seconds, and the System to Hull Integrated Electromagnetic Lock Defense would shut down automatically. Any longer and a pilot ran the risk of frying his own circuitry along with any missile in a 600 meter area.

The electromagnetic burst was followed closely by three more as his flight had managed to mimic his maneuver almost perfectly. The missiles, on the other hand, had a harder time. Even against less sophisticated AMRAAMs activating a craft's SHIELD was no sure defense, but coupled with the hard maneuver and the force of gravity their pursuers stood little chance.

The missiles were nearly on top of them when the electromagnetic wave disrupted their systems and reset the SatNav guidance. Unfortunately a dead and targetless missile was a still a missile, and as the four long slender cylinders plummeted past Mason's angel two collided. The explosion fell away, but the shockwave rattled the airframe of his craft, to say nothing of the teeth in his head.

Not all his pilots were so lucky. At the tail end of the formation Six screamed as the explosion engulfed her. "Fuck... " The line died.

Mason turned his head just in time to see the trailing archangel lose altitude. It tumbled wildly, burnt and sheared. Blue flames poured from the now exposed engines. Then it was gone, blocked by cloud cover as the three remaining angels ascended back toward the ceiling.

"She's going to be spewing mad," said his Aussie wingman.

"Keep your head in the clouds," said Mason. "This isn't over." As if to illustrate his point the HUD picked up six new contacts closing on them fast. It was the ghosts. They had come into active sensors range, which only meant one thing, they'd depleted their long-range AMRAAMs and were coming in to finish off their kill.

Mason leveled off his aircraft and took a quick assessment of his situation. They were the only three angels still in the sky. The rest of the squadron was destroyed or had dodged out of the arena. They were facing two to one odds against craft they had not even know existed five minutes before. Running was out of the question. There was only one thing left ot do.

His angel roared as the afterburner kicked in, and even now a familiar thrill wrenched at his gut as the craft below him rocket forward. "Break formation and engage." He smiled despite himself. "Time for a little payback."



 

Curiosity

"What is this one called?" said the shorter man as he gazed up at the sky.

"From the English dialect it translates as Curiosity," said the other taller man as he too directed his view skyward.

"Humans," said the first with a shake of his head. "Do not they have an adage as to the consequences of curiosity?"

"Yes," smiled the second, "but that is the essence of their spirit. They regularly enjoy challenging the established and very rarely heed their own cautionary warnings."

"You admire them too much."

"I like to believe that I see their potential."

The shorter man snorted his disbelief as he turned to look at his colleague. "You are of the minority opinion on that. The Star Council has very little hopes for their species. Every realistic projection shows that humanity will be extinct in less than 100 orbits of their planet. Most of the models predict that it will even be accomplished by their own hand."

"Data driven projections are not always accurate," said the other, returning his partners gaze.

"They are 99.9% accurate."

"I believe that if anything can prove to be that .01% it's humans. They have an amazing ability to hope and dream."

"They also have an amazing ability to kill and destroy."

"They have a quiet nobility."

"They are children playing with fire. If they are not creating better ways to hasten them on the path of oblivion they squander their technological resources on frivolities, social networking, automobiles, even something called blogging. Worse yet half their planet sits in abject poverty while the rest revels in its gluttony and excess. If they dedicated even half the time and effort to coming up with sustainable food sources that they dedicate to improving the quality of their home entertainment screens than maybe I might agree with you. We have both seen it first hand. Each day they add new blocks to the unbalancing of their world. It cannot hold the weight much longer."

"Humanity is not perfect," said the second man after a long pause of thought. "They are far from it, in fact, and they have many challenges to overcome. I never meant to suggest otherwise. It will be a long and treacherous road ahead to navigate, but I believe that they can overcome the demons of their worse nature. In the end, they will be that much stronger for the obstacles they have surpassed.

"Take for example the event we have come to witness today. It is a moment that future human generations will look back upon as a quiet but important milestone in their evolution. It is a project that faced great opposition and technical challenges, but even in the face of all the problems and difficulties, perhaps even despite them, they never gave up. Now human beings are set to land their most sophisticated and largest piece of land exploration equipment ever created on the surface of another planet."

"Sophisticated? To us it might as well be a flying abacus." The first man rubbed his fingers together idly feeling the smooth energetic texture of the microscopic shield that encircled his body and held the harsh world's environment at bay. "We both know this mission will end in failure. Less than 30% of these gadgets that humans fire toward this planet ever land successfully, if they make it here at all. It is like humanity just picks a point in their sky and randomly fires a rocket at it. This time will be no different. The only reason I chose to accompany you is because it has been a while since I have seen a good crash landing."

The taller man returned his gaze to the sky. "You're wrong. This will be the first step to humans setting foot on this planet. When that happens Earth will finally learn that there is nothing it can't accomplish. We have seen it happen before. Once a species sets foot on an alien world a spark ignites and there is nothing left to keep them bottled up on their own little planet. The people of that small blue orb will spread to other worlds like the light of their own sun."

The shorter man smiled knowingly. "You said the same thing when we witnessed humanity's first steps on their own moon. You were wrong then and you are wrong now. If humans do ever step on the soil of a  planet that is not their own it will be a stunt, a one time event. They are too self-absorbed, too selfish, too lacking in long term resolve to accomplish anything more than that. As long as they have their creature comforts they are unwilling and incapable of pushing themselves to make the kinds of sacrifices necessary for anything else."

"You're wrong, brother." He turned his head slowly as he scanned the sky. "Their imagination and their ability to dream is beyond the scope of any species we have yet seen. All the people of Earth need is the right provocation, the right motivation and they can accomplish anything. This small red planet can be that spark. In many ways it already is."

"You have always been naive," said the first. "Do you know what really angers me about humanity? It is the fact that I do not disagree with you. You are correct in your assessment of their abilities, but when I look at Earth I see a planet of people who squander that potential everyday. Worst yet, they do so knowingly. They see the problems with their world. They are aware of what steps they need to take to overcome many of the challenges that lay before them, and yet they do not even attempt to alter their course. Instead, they bury themselves in greed and laziness. They hide their heads preferring to ignore their difficulties and thus sealing the fate they are afraid to face. That is why humans will never set foot on this planet or any other. They lack the passion required to even save themselves, how could they ever find the spark to escape their own insignificance, let alone expand beyond it."

It was the taller man's turn to smile knowingly. "You see only their flaws, that has always been your greatest weakness. The people of Earth have a deeper strength than you give them credit for. Yes, they can be cruel, but they are also capable of great compassion. Their potential for beauty and creation is as awe-inspiring as their potential for destruction. You say they lack true commitment, I say we have yet to see the resolve that humans are capable of when pushed to their limits. Yes, they can sometimes be superficial in their technology, but from those seeds of frivolity comes imagination and collaboration that rivals any I have witnessed in the Seven Galaxies. You see them as a people unwilling to face their own destruction. I see a people who hold onto hope like a precious stone and find their faith for a better tomorrow in the very humanity you so discourage."

"Humans are doomed to a fate of their own making. You will never persuade me otherwise," said the first man as a distant boom sounded from high above.

A small streaking light appeared in the sky cutting its way through the thin upper atmosphere of the planet. Both beings watched this miniature sun as it plummeted from the sky like a fallen god. The ball of light grew in brilliance as it drew nearer its two silent observers, and then died. With a sudden and impossible jerk the metallic craft stalled in air, but only for a moment. The parachute that deployed wavered as it filled with Martian wind. Impossibly the flimsy fabric apparatus held and the decent of the craft slowed, but only slightly. The bottom heat-shield of the capsule continued its screaming fall toward the surface, jerked free of the larger vessel. It impacted the distant landscape with a thunderous noise.

The next sound that echoed through the wispy atmosphere was of that of rockets being fired. A smaller utilitarian craft broke free of the capsule shell and trailing parachute. Four rockets firing on all side slowed this smaller exotic metal object even further. The apparatus danced and swayed, slave to the gust and torrents of the weather as much to its own internal programming. Performing its mesmerizing ballet, the craft's descent abated to a hovering crawl. From its belly, like some great technological spider came the final piece of the miraculous puzzle. The creature lowered itself slowly on its sparkling strand of cable. Delicately, as if testing the temperature of a warm bath it touched down upon the sands. One wheel, followed gracefully by the rest.

With some unheard signal the mechanical cocoon from which the great creature was born detached its life line and took off with a whine of engines so loud that the noise bordered on a spectrum which no human would have been able to hear. The dust swirled, kicked up by the rocket blast as the machine disappeared back into the Martian heavens. When the cloud finally settled again the two men found themselves faced with the last remaining piece of the great craft, a six-wheeled motorized land vehicle carrying some of the most complex scientific equipment of human design.

"Pretty good for a flying abacus," said the taller man.

"Yeah," agreed the shorter. "Okay, that was... impressive."

"Humans."

"Humans," agreed the first. Both men disappeared in a beam of light