[SG] A View Of Genocide: The Ballad of Richard Less #3 (1/2)

Whistling in the Dark sabre at annotations.com
Fri Apr 24 19:00:06 PDT 2009


October 20, 2007
The Combat Zone
Boston, Massachusetts


     "All right. Let's consider the criminal groups," the dead kid said.
     "An hour later, and you're just considering. Jesus -- I can't believe
Rush Limbaugh didn't manage to kill you."
     "He did," the chick said, absent-mindedly.
     "Oh, that's right. Sorry. Carry on."
     "The Scions of the Phoot use mysticism, but they're really more ninjas
than sorcerers," the chick said. "The Scullers are essentially a preppy
street gang carrying around oars and boat knives--"
     "--yeah, and the O'Stereotype Mob just have cheap suits and knockoff
replicas of guns from the '30s. But they all want to control their
neighborhoods. The Scullers want to control the Charles River area, the
Scions want the North End, the O'Stereotypes want--"
     "It doesn't work," she cut in. "The Leonard Maltin Groupies are
mercenaries who do what they think Leonard Maltin would approve of. The
Trudis are trying to spread vapid chaos. Hell, even the Ensemble's
convoluted plans don't seem to involve territory."
     "The Net.Trolls and the Confen end up in turf wars."
     "Yeah, but that's because they have irreconcilable philosophical
differences." The chick shook her head. "I know they all recruit from the
teeming masses of displaced people, in places like Roxbury and the Combat
Zone--"
     "Not all of them."
     "...no, not all of them. Damn it, aside from their being criminals in
the first place, there's nothing that really ties them all together."
     "Nothing?" I asked with a slight smile.
     The dead kid shook his head. "Nothing. They have different goals,
different powers, different methods, different... gear...." his voice
trailed off.
     "Roger?" the chick asked.
     "Cairi... they may all be different, but... but they're all the same,
too. They have powers and gear. If it's as ridiculous as the Sons of the
Phoot or as outre as the Trudis, they still need...."
     "Need?" She blinked and got it. "They need resources."
     "Fake Tommy Guns, trombones that are actually assault rifles, crew
equipment that's redesigned to be deadly -- even the pure Forum the
Net.Trolls inject or the induced super powers of the Confen. All those
groups are uniformly well equipped but none of them have a visible source of
their equipment."
     "Which means someone has to be supplying them! No, not just supplying
them. *Empowering* them."
     "And for all their power and all their grand sounding goals, none of
them have any presence outside of Boston, which means--"
     "--they have to be going to a common supplier," they answered in
unison.
     I clapped ironically. "Hail the detectives of our age," I said. "Now
take it to the next step."
     "The next step?"
     I grinned. "You've started down the right path. But you're still
blundering your way along it."
     The chick frowned. "Whoever this common supplier is, he has to be in
Boston," she said.
     "Yeah?" the dead kid asked.
     "And they have to be processing and manufacturing the stuff the gangs
need. Sometimes in great bulk." She frowned. "That takes factories and
processing plants."
     "Take us home," I murmured.
     "So they need room and..." the dead kid paused. "Where are they getting
their raw materials?"
     "Huh?"
     "Tommy guns need steel and wood and stuff like that. The Ensemble's
band instruments need brass exteriors and seriously sophisticated interiors.
The Maltin Groupies have some of the highest end military gear on the
market. Hell, even the Trudis' macrame isn't off the shelf fiber. They have
to be getting some pretty regular shipments of some pretty expensive stuff."
     I chuckled. "Welcome to intelligence."
     "Huh?"
     "When you spend all your time thinking about drugs or arms or shit like
that, you're thinking like a James Bond movie. When you start thinking about
honest to shit logistics, you're a real spy. But you're not thinking broadly
enough. They need to be synthesizing Forum for the Net.Trolls. Where do they
get the chemicals? They're putting cybernetics and inducing genetic changes
in the Confeds. What kind of know-how do they need to do it? What about
fabric -- someone's got to be putting together everything from Ensemble band
uniforms to O'Stereotype chalkstripe suits to the Hot Topic meets Tinkerbell
Army atrocities the Trudis wear. How are they getting supplied... and who's
looking the other way when the supplies come in? And *why?*"
     "Money," the chick said. "Low level officials, inspectors, even cops
must be getting paid off.
     "It's more than that," the dead kid said. "Someone's got to set up the
supply lines and pass them through the walls to wherever these processing
plants or factories are, all without being noticed, all in a city that's
currently as hard to move through as a space station under martial law. That
doesn't just take money. That takes influence."
     "Which only makes sense if the supplier is working towards the same end
as the people who set the walls up in the first place. They didn't just
create ghettos with the walls. They created the conditions--"
     "--that led to the formation of active gangs threatening the ghettos.
And that creates fear--"
     "--and fear creates the power to increase control over the population."
     "Otherwise known as 'in order to preserve freedom, you need to fucking
take your shoes off at the airport, submit to searches without warrants, and
let the government know what books you take out at the library.'" I took a
long puff off my cigarette. The holder made the smoke all squeaky. I loved
that shit. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, yadda yadda fucking ya-hoo.
Good start, kids. Who wants pizza?"
     They both groaned. "We just got you chocolate sponge cake," the dead
kid said.
     "It's not my fault you forgot to bring pizza."




                         The League Presents

                          A View of Genocide

                      The Ballad of Richard Less
                                  by
                           Eric Burns-White
                      Struggling Against History

                              Part Three





August 17, 1997
The Washington Center
Langley, Virginia

     The Centers had been constructed or retrofitted early on throughout the
territory the ULA occupied. Specialized fortresses that housed equipment,
space for personnel, emergency sleeping quarters and the like. While the
American Authority was working out of the White House and the Old Executive
Office Building in Washington D.C. proper, the D.C. area activities of the
Unimaginable League Amoral themselves took place at the Washington Center.
     Since becoming Director, Less hadn't made a habit of going to the
Center. There was generally no need -- there were secure lines established
between the White House and the Center, and the military infrastructure the
ULA had inherited from their conquered territory was designed to be run from
that building, the Pentagon, and the like. But sometimes, things came up and
Richard Less had to make the pilgrimage.
     Relatively often, the thing that came up was a young woman, possessed
of an enigmatic smile, a fantastic head of hair, and more power than all the
Primaries of the Unimaginable League Amoral put together. She did her work
all across the globe, but every few weeks it was time for a check-up. That
happened at the Center. And Richard Less always made time to be there.
     Unlike the July visit -- the last time he had seen Danielle -- Bankert
wasn't with him. As new pockets of instability formed in the United States
and Mexico, higher level attention needed to be paid to them. The American
Authority had that job, and as Nimbus had predicted just a few short months
before, it was all too much for Richard Less to manage on his own. He needed
his staff.
     But some things you just didn't delegate.
     "I understand you're resisting some of our troop and resource
reassignments," Egoiste said, meeting him in the Center's lobby. It was
oddly elegant, for such a hastily constructed building. All marble and
gleaming black granite flooring.
     "We have increased partisan activity in thirty-five states, and that's
not even considering Mexico. And don't start with me on Mexican Authority.
The least you could have done was vaporize the more blatantly corrupt
Mexican officials before staffing down there."
     "That would have left us with the Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y
Recursos Naturales and the Cámara de Diputados janitorial staff," Egoiste
replied smoothly. "You can handle the brush fires with the remaining
personnel."
     "Bullshit." The two walked deeper into the building. "It's not going to
even out. It's going to get worse. I realize this isn't your native soil,
but we have a fine tradition of rednecked yahoos with guns in this country,
and they've had a hundred and twenty nine days since the surrender to get
both organized and pissed off."
     Egoiste chuckled.
     "Glad you think this is funny. Remind me not to ride in any cars with
you. They might blow up and that'd ruin my day."
     "Mister Director, we gave you plenty of time to entrench your position.
Now, we're moving the resources of the Americas to support the real war
effort. We have seven offensives and six stalemates all across Asia and the
Middle East. We're fighting the Awe Inspiring Force in the air, on the
ground, on the water and on battlefields quite frankly your unenhanced mind
can't even consider. And you're telling me you can't handle a few 'yahoos
with guns?'"
     "Some of those yahoos have superpowers."
     "And they're being handled. Very well, I might add. My compliments to
you and--"
     "Let's cut to the end of the discussion," Less said, stopping and
facing Egoiste, who gracefully paused his own walk. "The paranormals we've
been dealing with range from nobodies to tough guys, but they're essentially
disorganized. The absence of a coherent unifying strategy *or* of truly
major threats among the pockets are palpable. So far, the most dangerous
enemies we've fought have been Team M.E.C.H.A. and some of their friends--"
     "They've managed to give Seraphim considerable trouble, I'll admit, but
their impact is still very local."
     "That's my point." Less leaned forward. "Since the last week of
February, we haven't heard jack or shit from Andy Awesome or his Awesome
Force. Smartman's off the board. Chalandra Harkness's off the board.
Trashman's off the board. Exemplar's off the board. And that's not even
counting--"
     "They're not going to have any impact, Mister Director. Put them from
your mind."
     "That's *crazy,* Egoiste. Full on batshit insanity, and you of all
people should know it. These are the same people who handed you your ass in
every confrontation you've had with them."
     Egoiste smiled slightly. "I'm not sure I'd characterize it quite like
that--"
     "I don't give a shit about your pride right now. I've spent my life
underestimating these bastards, and just once -- just *once* I'd like to
actually *over*react to their threat instead. And I can't do that with
you--"
     "Oracle--"
     "Oh Jesus, here we go," Less said, turning away to start walking again.
     "*Oracle* has mapped out all the possible contingencies," Egoiste
continued, matching Less's stride. "And the so-called heroes you keep
mentioning factor in none of them. *None* of them, Mister Less. Quite
honestly, I have to assume we managed to kill some or all of them in the
initial campaign."
     "Yeah, because that's what happens."
     "You simply need faith," Egoiste said. "We know you can handle these
distractions. Oracle has foreseen it."
     "How do you know that?"
     "Excuse me?"
     Less turned to look at Egoiste. Glare at him, really. "How do you god
damn know she's foreseen it? I know damn well that Roulette couldn't read
her mind even before she became the central nervous system for a few million
soldiers all over the planet. You're taking her word for all this."
     Egoiste arched an eyebrow. "What are you suggesting, Mister Less?"
     "Maybe she's lying. Maybe she's *wrong.* Maybe she's misinterpreting
the omens or the entrails or whatever the Hell she does. Maybe, just *maybe*
you need to take *any* prediction for the future that says the Awesome Force
does *nothing* to stop your planetary conquest and throw it out the window
as flawed and untrustworthy!"
     Egoiste didn't lose that insufferable smile. "It must be hard, Mister
Less."
     "Oh, don't give me this speech, DuMarque. I *wrote* this speech."
     "I'm serious. It must be hard for you. You spent decades in government
service, gathering information, making plans, sketching out scenarios,
making predictions and giving advice you were certain was correct, and
having little upstart demigods prove you wrong again and again."
     Less locked his jaw and hit the button for the elevator.
     "And now, here we are, and for all your efforts and your network of
eyes and ears and your analysts and your advice... nothing can compare to a
woman who has done nothing but let her mind wander. And she has always been
right. Every time."
     "That you know of," Less muttered.
     "And here we are, and you are paranoid, like any good victim should be
after being burned so very often, and she's telling you that Special Special
Agent Richard Less is wrong *again.*"
     The doors of the elevator opened. Less stepped inside, looking back
over his shoulder. "That's Director Less to you," he said.
     "Oh, of course, Mister Director. Of course."
     "You're going to remove the resources and the troops."
     Egoiste nodded, smiling a bit more.
     Less pushed the sub basement's button. "Coming?"
     "I've seen the girl. I don't need to see her again." The doors started
to close.
     Less moved a hand to catch them. "One thing, Egoiste."
     "Yes, Mister Director?"
     "I've been wrong before. But a lot more often, I've been right. Only
some pig-headed, ignorant, self-aggrandizing tin-plated inferior of a
superior or a President has overruled me because my fears couldn't
*possibly* be justified. And when it happens I've had to take admittedly
bittersweet pleasure in watching *my* predictions prove correct and *their*
predictions prove wrong -- usually while they end up arrested or dead." He
smiled a bit. "It's ever so much nicer to be working with wise, benevolent
and thoughtful superiors now, of course. I'm sure that history couldn't
possibly repeat itself."
     "I'm sure," Egoiste said. Smirking.
     Less pulled his hand back, and the doors closed.
     The sub-basement was the primary laboratory. While most of the League
of Unconcerned Scientists were still freezing their questionable brains off
in Newfoundland, one or two were often on hand here, particularly when
Radian was back for reinforcement. The renegade Xolchipalian Jonathan Frakes
(coincidence) -- the Crimson Crowbar -- had taken to being on hand as well.
He was there, red skin and white hair gleaming unnaturally in the
fluorescent light. Doctor Unorthodox was also there.
     Less nodded to them both, but walked up to Radian herself. She looked
sleek. Beautiful. Field work had agreed with their weapon of mass
destruction. Her luminescent white uniform glowed in the harsh light of the
lab. The crimson of the mushroom cloud on her chest and piping on her arms
seemed to almost float. And as Less approached, she smiled warmly. "You're
not sleeping well enough," she accused. "You're getting all wrinkled and I
swear you have more grey hair than you did a month ago."
     "Blame the Crowbar over here. They're taking our army and leaving us
with six retired plumbers and a trained dog."
     "That's not fair," the Crowbar intoned woodenly. "There's a war going
on."
     "Fair, shmair," Danielle said, shifting next to Less. "Clearly, I
should just stay in America. That way, I can handle whatever Mister Director
Less needs and you can have your soldiers soften up China."
     "Or, you can go back to China and finish your job," the Crowbar intoned
woodenly, "making the question of American defense moot."
     Danielle shrugged. "I don't see the point, really. After all, it's not
like I'm fighting anyone who can fight back."
     Which in one sense was true. The disposable troops and the secondaries
were the ones on the front lines, hammering away at the Awe-Inspiring
Force's fanatics and zealots. When Manilow or Fallen Angel swept in to
devastate some of the ranks, they ended up taking on Incendiary or
Goldenrage, not Radian. Radian was being sent to the places where there was
still a lot of population and a lot of opposition -- especially when that
opposition *didn't* have superpowers. It was psychological. China or Russia
or Pakistan could send out its armies, and this woman swatted them away and
took out cities at the same time. It sent the message that not only couldn't
the Unimaginable League Amoral be defeated, their opposition was hardly even
worth *mentioning.*
     And in the wake of Radian's casual devastation came engineering crews
-- crews stringing up repeaters and co-opting industrial centers. Crews
remaking the survivors into workers, into soldiers connected to their
followers by a single central mind who was buried in one of the Centers.
What sometimes struck Less was the inevitability of it all -- whether or not
Oracle's predictions were true, the tactics were sound.
     Which meant this wasn't the time to stop them. "The Crowbar's right,"
Less said. "Pacify the natives so we can recruit them to the cause, and then
the whole thing ends that much faster."
     Danielle smiled a bit. "Is that what we're calling it now?
Pacification?"
     "You have a better name for it?"
     Danielle considered. "Genocide?"
     Doctor Unorthodox's lips quirked. That's right -- he was Jewish. A
crazy, psychopathic Jew, mind, but he got weird about some things sometimes.
     "Sounds about right," Less said. "But that doesn't play well on
television. Besides, we're liberating China from Communism. That's a net
good no matter how you look at it, right?"
     "I suppose," Danielle said. "I don't see why we get worked up about
labels and words. That's not the point, is it?"
     Doctor Unorthodox arched an eyebrow. "What do you think the point is,
Radian?"
     The girl shrugged. "They're on the other side. That means we destroy
them. If they want to surrender it's not hard to do, after all." She looked
at Less. "Right?"
     "Damn straight. Now lie down. You know the drill."
     Danielle rolled her eyes, lying on the reclined table on her stomach.
There was a hole for her face, and the table was molded for comfort. "Why do
I have to stare at the floor?" she asked. "My original lab table had me
staring up at the ceiling. That was much nicer."
     "Your original table had hookups to pump chemicals into you," the
Crowbar intoned woodenly. "At this point, your body manufactures all the
hormones you need." He took out a small button sized disk, ridged, made of
silver and red metals. He reached to the girl's neck moving her hair aside,
and pressed the disk onto the exposed skin just above her bodysuit's
turtleneck.
     Danielle giggled. "That always tickles."
     "It's the adhesion," Doctor Unorthodox said.
     "And it's nighty-night time, Danielle," Less said.
     "Okay. Will you be here when I wake up?"
     "Promise."
     "Mmm." She sounded happy. "Good."
     The Crowbar tapped the stud on the disk. It lit up red, and Danielle's
body went rigid. The light then turned silver, and she relaxed, in so deep
she was technically in a coma.
     "God," Doctor Unorthodox said. "I've been perverting science and
committing atrocities against humankind for over a decade now, but that girl
*scares* me."
     "I know what you mean," the Crowbar intoned woodenly. "She's so...
perky. How many people has she killed so far?"
     "There's no good way to measure with accuracy," Less said. "All told,
we're probably looking at seven figures. Maybe more. She's almost certainly
above Dangerousman's totals, though." He looked at the slumbering girl.
"Poor kid."
     "Why do you say that?" the Crowbar intoned woodenly.
     Less shrugged. "She's nice. I know it's all fake, but she's a
sweetheart."
     "She's a sociopath," Doctor Unorthodox said. "We made her to be the
*perfect* sociopath. Utterly without remorse. Utterly without guilt. Only
concerned with doing her job and making her masters happy."
     "Until we don't have anyone left for her to kill," Less said.
     "Don't worry about that," the Crowbar intoned woodenly. "There'll
always be someone for her to kill."
     "Besides, we can always rework the Galatea Protocol in her down times,"
Doctor Unorthodox said. "It's probably safer to, regardless. Make her a
total pacifist maybe. Or a mistress. Heh -- if we can work out that
radioactive skin problem, we could make her your First Lady, Less."
     "Don't be obscene," Less said. He watched the bug blink on her neck.
"What exactly does that thing do?"
     "It xolchaprobes her down to the neurological and cellular level," the
Crowbar intoned woodenly. "It checks the levels and stimulates production of
hormones and brain chemicals to maintain her personality levels. It also
stimulates brain responses and sends a review of her association patterns
through her mind."
     "And it's an insurance policy," Doctor Unorthodox said. "If she ever
*did* come out of the Galatea Protocol, this thing can run them live --
reinstill the right personality no matter what her brain proper is doing."
He grinned. "Those wacky Xolchipalians and their mind control technologies."
     "It's suppressed on Xolchipalia," the Crowbar intoned woodenly. "But I
had occasion to learn how to make and use them."
     "Right," Less said. "Good to know." He took out a cigarette.
     "There's no smoking down here," the Crowbar intoned woodenly.
     "Is that a fact?" Less said, putting it in his mouth and fishing out
his lighter.
     The Crowbar reached over and plucked it from Less's mouth. "Yes," he
intoned woodenly. "It is."
     Less looked back, then turned back towards Danielle. "My mistake," he
said.

                              * * * * * *

October 20, 2007
The Combat Zone
Boston, Massachusetts

     "You'd be surprised how much of life comes down to resource
management," I was saying as I bit into pizza. It wasn't good pizza -- this
was the Combat Zone -- but it was hot and it had cheese and I didn't have to
pay for it, and those are a happy combination as far as I'm concerned. "You
want to field an army? You got to feed and clothe them too. You want to
liberate Iraq? You need to walk in with food and water and electricity and
make it better than they had before you started lobbing bombs. Napoleon lost
against the Russians 'cause the Russians were willing to destroy everything
Napoleon's army stood to capture. So it wasn't just that Napoleon had to
march an army overland in Russia -- they also couldn't resupply from the
territories they were in, and--"
     "Spoken from experience?" the chick asked. She was a bit snotty about
it, which was a little disappointing. She'd lost a lot of her vim, her
vigor, her verve. She needed Geritol in a big way. Assuming she even knew
what Geritol was.
     "Fuck yeah. And not just while I was destroying the free world, either.
Hell, any time you work in the field you're managing resources. Every day of
my life opens and closes with resource management."
     "I thought it opened and closed with pot."
     "Pot, tequila, scotch, gin, poppers, horse -- you know what they all
have in common?"
     "They should have already killed you?" the chick snapped.
     "They're *resources* I have to *manage.* If I'm going to keep in my
well deserved haze, the last thing I need is to run out of crystal meth two
hours before I've got to start losing twenty pounds while running for my
life." I dropped a chunk of congealed cheese on the floor, and Leverage
trotted over to hoover it up. "So far, you guys have had it pretty swank."
     "Swank?" the chick asked. "I work in a convenience store."
     I waved my hand dismissively. "Not what I meant. Though you could make
a soft living running textures across Mendez's back, I'm sure. Nah, even on
the run, you've got Brainy Smurf providing you tactical info, sweating the
details, making sure your yuppie phones have their yuppie batteries. When
you guys are crouched in a hovel one door down from a meth lab and across
the hall from a pack'a Net.trolls, you're going to learn just how dearly a
bag of baked Lays comes, much less the tools you need to fight a war against
shadowy overlords."
     "We won't let it come to that," the dead kid said. He sounded firm.
     "You should write down just when you said that," I said. "Seriously.
There's nothing that'll keep you quite as happy when you can't nail your
wife for six months 'cause she can't take her clothes off without killing
the rest of your team like reviewing that quote." I considered. "Man, after
about a week that suit of hers'll smell pretty damn ripe, won't it?"
     "I am so, so sick of you," the chick said.
     "Stick around. You don't know what sick means yet." 




[Siiiiiide one... you don't have to put on the red light...]


More information about the superguy mailing list