SW10: December 2010 #3a: Cauldron Book II Part 3 - The Crusher Joe and Norma Show

[Scott Eiler]

---

What Has Gone Before:  Holly the USIB agent has been captured.  During a phone
conference with USIB leader Yon Schmidt, Holly's colleague Summer has resigned
to go save her.  So have all of Holly and Summer's friends, including their
leader Norma McMillan.

---

"Okay. Summer. Norma. All of you. We need you. We need Holly too. We're gonna 
get her back."

Norma responded. "Thank you, Mr. Corrigan. How are you planning to do this?"

"Well, we still gotta hash out the details."

"What forces can you command to help you?"

"Gotta hash that out too."

"You don't *have* people to rescue Holly with, do you? We've had a lack of force 
for the mission all along. The President was giving us the prayers of a grateful 
nation just this morning, but that's all the backup we ever get. There's no way 
it'll end at this rate."

"You know the President's got policies we gotta follow."

"I know. But we're tired. We want to go home. We never signed on for long-term 
duty. You told us you needed some quick help. We helped. Now we're done."

"You know the Army signs on for the duration, right?"

"Right. But the Army usually *supports* its soldiers. We don't *have* Army 
support. At fight time, we don't get *any* support. So we resigned. Resign means 
resign. *We'll* get Holly back. *And* we'll get home before Christmas." We cheered.

"I like the idea. But how you gonna do that without the resources of the U.S. Gov?"

"Oh, please. You are not our resource. We were always yours." We cheered again.

"Still gonna be hard for you without all that nice equipment and tech support 
USIB has."

"We'll match our support network against yours any time. Especially now that we 
see how the Government treats its support." We cheered once more.

"You still got that contract you signed with us."

"It's employment at will. The Gov *insisted* on that. You can fire us at any 
time. We can also *resign* at any time."

"Fine. But you still gotta give your equipment back. We got a job still needs 
doing, we got people to do it, and they need your suits."

"That's okay. Our team was never about the suits anyway. We're all about the 
team." (Citation)

---

Author and Reviewer Notes:

Andrew Perron wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Mar 2011 02:54:10 +0000 (UTC), Scott Eiler wrote:
>
>> Still, it might be story-insert time again, because the players have their 
>> reasons.  Everyone who's out in the field is getting cranky, they want to be 
>> home by Christmas, they want an obvious sign of Gov support, and not even the VP 
>> can give that.  You may have noticed in that zombie story, Vice-Presidents do 
>> not have power over military forces.  The United States Insight Battalion, of 
>> course, is not a military force, it's a surveillance agency.
> 
> Hmmmmmm.  Yeah, makes significantly more sense with this explaination.  I
> think such an insert would not be out of place.

So inserted.

This and the Unicorn challenge have put me off my schedule, though.  New episode 
probably in two weeks.

> Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, saxophone and triangle solo~

Will you hire a philharmonic orchestra to help you with the triangle?

-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

Only their myths concerned peace and contentment, and that in such a
coercive, sullen package it was obvious that the Earth humans resented
the very idea.

- from "Passing" by Elaine Radford, Aboriginal SF, May/June 1987.