just because I'm dressed like this
doesn't mean I'm a communist
---Billy Bragg
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them
but they were only satellites
is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish I wish I wish you'd care
--Billy Bragg
Surprise surprise
valentine's day is over
it's over
---Billy Bragg
I cried there is no justice
as they led me out the door
the judge said
This isn't a court of justice son
this is a court of law
---Billy Bragg
In a perfect world we'd sing in tune
but this is reality so give me some room
--Billy Bragg
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Untitled Part 2
Act One
Scene Two
Lights
The stage is set as Annie's apartment. It is nicely decorated with a couch, two chairs, and several posters hang on the wall. Annie is cleaning up a little when a doorbell sounds off stage. She runs to off stage and we hear a door opening. Annie reenters followed by Malcolm, Daniel, and Mary.
Mary: Thank you so much for letting me stay with you tonight, I don't know what I would've done otherwise.
Annie: It is no trouble at all! I love having someone new to talk to.
Malcolm: You will soon find out that my sister likes to talk a lot.
Daniel: We tried to sew her mouth closed when we were in 4th grade and Annie was about six but Malcolm's mom stopped us.
Malcolm: She regretted it until the day she died.
Mary: Your mother's dead?
Malcolm: Yes she is.
Daniel: It was a very sad day. You see, she had made the mistake of asking Annie, who was in High School at the time, how school was that day...
Malcolm: And Annie kept talking and talking
Daniel: And talking and talking and talking.
Malcolm: Until finally....
Daniel: Three days later
Malcolm: She died of thirst.
Daniel: It was tragic.
Malcolm: Her last words were
Daniel: Please Jesus Make It Stop.
Malcolm: Make Annie Dumb
Daniel: If not for me than for the human race as a whole
Malcolm: Then she fell down dead
Mary giggles in a slightly guilty way, like she knows she shouldn't find it funny but does, and Annie throws a pillow at Daniel and Malcolm.
Annie: Shut up! Mary, don't listen to a word those two clowns say. My mother is alive and well. Would you like something to drink?
Mary: Yes thank you.
Annie: I have coke, coffee, tea, water, milk, wine, beer, what will it be?
Mary: I'll just have some milk, thank you.
Malcolm: I'll have a beer
Daniel: And I would like a coke.
Annie: I didn't offer a drink to you two.
Annie exits. Malcolm picks up a cd off the coffee table and looks at it. Daniel leans in and looks at it as well.
Daniel: Oh! The New Mellisa Etheridge album. I've heard that it's good.
Malcolm: It isn't.
Daniel: Really?
Malcolm: Yeah, a couple of catchy songs but nothing terrific.
Mary: I've heard about her! Do you know, do you know, that she's a, that she's a (as if saying a very dirty word) a lesbian?
Daniel: Um, yes....
Annie reenters. She hands Mary a glass of milk and tosses Malcolm a bottle of beer.
Malcolm: You're a dear Annie.
Annie(ignoring him, apologetically): Sorry Dan, I'm out of coke, so I'm making some coffee for you instead. It should be ready in a little bit.
Daniel: Ok, thanks, Annie. What do you think of this cd? I'm considering getting it.
Malcolm: Don't bother.
Mary: Didn't you hear what I said? She's a lesbian.
Daniel(a little perplexed): So?
Mary(confused, not aggressive): What do you mean “So”?
Daniel: I said I thought I might buy the album and you said that she's a lesbian as if that was a reason not to buy the album
Mary: Well it is.
Daniel: Um, how so?
Mary: Well, if you buy she'll get money.
Malcolm(a little bitterly): That is the way the music business is supposed to work, yes. Though it doesn't always.
Daniel: Why would I not want her to have money?
Mary: I've already told you: She's a lesbian.
Annie: Look guys, I think we should stop this conversation....
Malcolm: Yeah maybe we should.
Daniel: No we shouldn't. Mary, why would I not want a lesbian to have money?
Mary: Because then they will live longer.
Malcolm: Jesus Christ.
Mary(gasps): You just took the lord's name in vain!
Annie: Look, I really think that we should...
Daniel: Wait, what did you say your name was?
Mary: Mary Phelps.
Daniel: And you're in town with your family?
Mary: Yes.
Daniel: Oh My God.
Mary: Daniel! You just took the lord's name in vain! Get down on your knees and beg forgiveness, you to Malcolm.
Daniel: Malcolm, are you thinking what I am?
Malcolm: Yes I am.
Annie: I'm not.
Daniel: Mary, your family travels in buses, right?
Mary: Yes, I already told you that.
Malcolm: Think it through Annie.
Annie: Oh God Above.
Mary: Annie, you just...
Daniel: Mary are you perhaps in town to attend a funeral?
Malcolm: Gary Lockman's by any chance?
Mary: Yes, my family picketed his funeral.
Daniel(throwing up his hands and standing up): Wonderful, fantastic,
Annie: Dan...
Daniel: What are the chances, Malcolm, tell me what are the chances?!
Malcolm(sitting back and shaking his head): Probably pretty slim.
Annie: Guys.....
Daniel: I need to get out of here. I need....some space.
Daniel exits.
Mary: What was that about?
Malcolm: Mary, are you related to a minister named Fred Phelps.
Mary: Yes, he's my grandpa.
Malcolm: Ok, this is awkward
Mary: Why?
Annie: Well, Mary you see your grandfather stands for some things and believes some things that we.....um.....
Malcolm: Don't agree with.
Annie: Yes! He stands for and believes in things that we don't and....
Mary: What does he stand for that you disagree with?
Annie: Wellll....
Malcolm: His views on homosexuality primarily.
Mary: You like f.....
Annie: Don't say that word.
Mary: What, Fa...
Annie: Yes that one, don't say it.
Malcolm: Also we, that is Daniel, Annie, and I, don't really think that picketing people's funerals is in very good taste.
Mary: But he has to get the message out, I mean F....Homosexuals are bringing down God's wrath on the world. We have to stop them.
Malcolm(to Annie): I don't think that this is going to work.
Annie: Yeah....
Mary: Hold on....OH MY GOSH! She jumps up and tries to get as far away from Malcolm as possible I should have guessed it, us being in New York and all. You're a homosexual!
Malcolm: Who? Me or Annie?
Mary: You! Stay away from me! I know that you are more violent than a normal person.
Annie: What does us being in New York have to do with it?
Mary: New York is homosexual haven.
Annie: Really?
Mary: Yes.
Malcolm: Look, it's getting late. I'm going to go see if Dan is okay. I bid both of you ladies goodnight. As the Bard wrote “Parting is such sweet sorrow”. Adieu.
Annie: By Malcolm, call me in the morning.
Malcolm: Will do. Bye Mary.
He exits
Mary: I'm so glad that he's gone. Homosexuals scare me.
Annie(harshly): That's my brother you're talking about! And he's not even gay! I bet you haven't even met a gay person before! I swear to God you people drive me crazy! Look, Malcolm is right. It's late. The spare room is through that door. I'll talk to you in the morning.
Mary: Goodnight.
Annie: Yeah Whatever.
Annie exits
Mary stands alone, looking lost, alone, and scared. She turns around and exits.
Black
Scene Two
Lights
The stage is set as Annie's apartment. It is nicely decorated with a couch, two chairs, and several posters hang on the wall. Annie is cleaning up a little when a doorbell sounds off stage. She runs to off stage and we hear a door opening. Annie reenters followed by Malcolm, Daniel, and Mary.
Mary: Thank you so much for letting me stay with you tonight, I don't know what I would've done otherwise.
Annie: It is no trouble at all! I love having someone new to talk to.
Malcolm: You will soon find out that my sister likes to talk a lot.
Daniel: We tried to sew her mouth closed when we were in 4th grade and Annie was about six but Malcolm's mom stopped us.
Malcolm: She regretted it until the day she died.
Mary: Your mother's dead?
Malcolm: Yes she is.
Daniel: It was a very sad day. You see, she had made the mistake of asking Annie, who was in High School at the time, how school was that day...
Malcolm: And Annie kept talking and talking
Daniel: And talking and talking and talking.
Malcolm: Until finally....
Daniel: Three days later
Malcolm: She died of thirst.
Daniel: It was tragic.
Malcolm: Her last words were
Daniel: Please Jesus Make It Stop.
Malcolm: Make Annie Dumb
Daniel: If not for me than for the human race as a whole
Malcolm: Then she fell down dead
Mary giggles in a slightly guilty way, like she knows she shouldn't find it funny but does, and Annie throws a pillow at Daniel and Malcolm.
Annie: Shut up! Mary, don't listen to a word those two clowns say. My mother is alive and well. Would you like something to drink?
Mary: Yes thank you.
Annie: I have coke, coffee, tea, water, milk, wine, beer, what will it be?
Mary: I'll just have some milk, thank you.
Malcolm: I'll have a beer
Daniel: And I would like a coke.
Annie: I didn't offer a drink to you two.
Annie exits. Malcolm picks up a cd off the coffee table and looks at it. Daniel leans in and looks at it as well.
Daniel: Oh! The New Mellisa Etheridge album. I've heard that it's good.
Malcolm: It isn't.
Daniel: Really?
Malcolm: Yeah, a couple of catchy songs but nothing terrific.
Mary: I've heard about her! Do you know, do you know, that she's a, that she's a (as if saying a very dirty word) a lesbian?
Daniel: Um, yes....
Annie reenters. She hands Mary a glass of milk and tosses Malcolm a bottle of beer.
Malcolm: You're a dear Annie.
Annie(ignoring him, apologetically): Sorry Dan, I'm out of coke, so I'm making some coffee for you instead. It should be ready in a little bit.
Daniel: Ok, thanks, Annie. What do you think of this cd? I'm considering getting it.
Malcolm: Don't bother.
Mary: Didn't you hear what I said? She's a lesbian.
Daniel(a little perplexed): So?
Mary(confused, not aggressive): What do you mean “So”?
Daniel: I said I thought I might buy the album and you said that she's a lesbian as if that was a reason not to buy the album
Mary: Well it is.
Daniel: Um, how so?
Mary: Well, if you buy she'll get money.
Malcolm(a little bitterly): That is the way the music business is supposed to work, yes. Though it doesn't always.
Daniel: Why would I not want her to have money?
Mary: I've already told you: She's a lesbian.
Annie: Look guys, I think we should stop this conversation....
Malcolm: Yeah maybe we should.
Daniel: No we shouldn't. Mary, why would I not want a lesbian to have money?
Mary: Because then they will live longer.
Malcolm: Jesus Christ.
Mary(gasps): You just took the lord's name in vain!
Annie: Look, I really think that we should...
Daniel: Wait, what did you say your name was?
Mary: Mary Phelps.
Daniel: And you're in town with your family?
Mary: Yes.
Daniel: Oh My God.
Mary: Daniel! You just took the lord's name in vain! Get down on your knees and beg forgiveness, you to Malcolm.
Daniel: Malcolm, are you thinking what I am?
Malcolm: Yes I am.
Annie: I'm not.
Daniel: Mary, your family travels in buses, right?
Mary: Yes, I already told you that.
Malcolm: Think it through Annie.
Annie: Oh God Above.
Mary: Annie, you just...
Daniel: Mary are you perhaps in town to attend a funeral?
Malcolm: Gary Lockman's by any chance?
Mary: Yes, my family picketed his funeral.
Daniel(throwing up his hands and standing up): Wonderful, fantastic,
Annie: Dan...
Daniel: What are the chances, Malcolm, tell me what are the chances?!
Malcolm(sitting back and shaking his head): Probably pretty slim.
Annie: Guys.....
Daniel: I need to get out of here. I need....some space.
Daniel exits.
Mary: What was that about?
Malcolm: Mary, are you related to a minister named Fred Phelps.
Mary: Yes, he's my grandpa.
Malcolm: Ok, this is awkward
Mary: Why?
Annie: Well, Mary you see your grandfather stands for some things and believes some things that we.....um.....
Malcolm: Don't agree with.
Annie: Yes! He stands for and believes in things that we don't and....
Mary: What does he stand for that you disagree with?
Annie: Wellll....
Malcolm: His views on homosexuality primarily.
Mary: You like f.....
Annie: Don't say that word.
Mary: What, Fa...
Annie: Yes that one, don't say it.
Malcolm: Also we, that is Daniel, Annie, and I, don't really think that picketing people's funerals is in very good taste.
Mary: But he has to get the message out, I mean F....Homosexuals are bringing down God's wrath on the world. We have to stop them.
Malcolm(to Annie): I don't think that this is going to work.
Annie: Yeah....
Mary: Hold on....OH MY GOSH! She jumps up and tries to get as far away from Malcolm as possible I should have guessed it, us being in New York and all. You're a homosexual!
Malcolm: Who? Me or Annie?
Mary: You! Stay away from me! I know that you are more violent than a normal person.
Annie: What does us being in New York have to do with it?
Mary: New York is homosexual haven.
Annie: Really?
Mary: Yes.
Malcolm: Look, it's getting late. I'm going to go see if Dan is okay. I bid both of you ladies goodnight. As the Bard wrote “Parting is such sweet sorrow”. Adieu.
Annie: By Malcolm, call me in the morning.
Malcolm: Will do. Bye Mary.
He exits
Mary: I'm so glad that he's gone. Homosexuals scare me.
Annie(harshly): That's my brother you're talking about! And he's not even gay! I bet you haven't even met a gay person before! I swear to God you people drive me crazy! Look, Malcolm is right. It's late. The spare room is through that door. I'll talk to you in the morning.
Mary: Goodnight.
Annie: Yeah Whatever.
Annie exits
Mary stands alone, looking lost, alone, and scared. She turns around and exits.
Black
Friday, December 10, 2010
Untitled Part 1
Now that the House is finished it is time to start another serialized work. So I will serialize a currently untitled play script that I am working on. If you have title suggestions please suggest them.
Untitled
ACT ONE
Scene One
Curtain
A young woman of about 19 who is wearing a skirt and sensible top is walking through a street of storefronts looking very lost. She is followed by two men, both of who are clearly intoxicated, who are jeering at her.
Drunken Man #1: Come on then girly! We aren't so bad! Just give us a chance!
Drunken Man #2: Yeah, we're not that bad!
Mary: Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!
Drunken Man #1: Just give us a smile!
Drunken Man #2: Yeah, just a smile.
Malcolm and Daniel enter.
Mary: Leave me alone!
The men have caught up to Mary and one stands in front of her and the other stands behind her, blocking her whenever she tries to move. Malcolm and Daniel exchange glances and walk up to the men.
Malcolm(in a fake British accent): Evening gents.
Daniel: What seems to be the issue here?
Drunken Man #1: Walk away, man, it's nothing to do with you.
Drunken Man #2: Yeah! Walk Away!
Malcolm: You know, I think it might have something to do with us.
Drunken Man #1: How? She yours?
Daniel: Excuse me?
Malcolm: Dude seriously? Is she ours?
Drunken Man #1: Well is She? Cause she is a fine looking thing and if she isn't yours I just might...
Daniel slaps Drunken Man #1 across the face cutting him off. He staggers back and Drunken Man #2 walks forward.
Drunken Man #2: Hey....
Malcolm: Let me give you a piece of friendly advice: both of us have had a really really bad day so I would not push us.
Daniel: Why Don't Both of you just walk away.
Drunken Man #1: If you broke my nose, I'll call the cops on you!
Malcolm: If you can remember in the morning.
Daniel laughs,
Drunken Man #1: I'll call them right now!
He takes out a cell phone and Daniel grabs it. He tosses it to the ground and smashes it with his shoe.
Drunken Man #1: How dare you?!
He starts toward Daniel and Malcolm steps in front of the man.
Malcolm: Walk away fellas
Both drunken men look at Malcolm and decide that it is better to just leave. They try to walk off with dignity but end up staggering off.
Malcolm: And remember: Don't drive drunk!
Daniel laughs again and looks at Mary who is looking very scared
Daniel: Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Because if they did I'll call the cops on them. Just give me an excuse.
Mary: No I'm fine, just scared.
Malcolm: Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look like you belong here.
Mary: I don't. I was in town with my family and I got separated.
Daniel: Do you have a cell? Because I could lend you one if you don't.
Mary: None of my family have cell phones.
Malcolm: Really? I didn't know that was possible in today's society.
Daniel: Do you know where they are staying?
Mary: They were going to head back tonight, I don't know what to do.
Daniel: They wouldn't have waited for you?
Mary: They would have assumed I was in one of the other buses.
Malcolm: Your family has to travel in multiple buses? That must be one big family.
Mary: It is.
Daniel: Malcolm do you think Annie would put her up tonight?
Malcolm: Probably.
Mary: I don't want any charity.
Malcolm: No it's cool my sister would probably like the company.
Daniel: Do you want to call her while I go pull the car around?
Malcolm: Yeah. What did you say your name was?
Mary: I'm Mary Phelps.
Malcolm: Nice to meet you, I'm Malcolm Jacobs.
Daniel: And I'm Daniel Nelson.
Mary: Thank you both very much for all you're doing.
Daniel: Least we could do.
Malcolm(on his phone): Annie, hey its me. Ok so you will never guess what happened to me and Daniel as we were walking back home.....
Black out
Untitled
ACT ONE
Scene One
Curtain
A young woman of about 19 who is wearing a skirt and sensible top is walking through a street of storefronts looking very lost. She is followed by two men, both of who are clearly intoxicated, who are jeering at her.
Drunken Man #1: Come on then girly! We aren't so bad! Just give us a chance!
Drunken Man #2: Yeah, we're not that bad!
Mary: Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!
Drunken Man #1: Just give us a smile!
Drunken Man #2: Yeah, just a smile.
Malcolm and Daniel enter.
Mary: Leave me alone!
The men have caught up to Mary and one stands in front of her and the other stands behind her, blocking her whenever she tries to move. Malcolm and Daniel exchange glances and walk up to the men.
Malcolm(in a fake British accent): Evening gents.
Daniel: What seems to be the issue here?
Drunken Man #1: Walk away, man, it's nothing to do with you.
Drunken Man #2: Yeah! Walk Away!
Malcolm: You know, I think it might have something to do with us.
Drunken Man #1: How? She yours?
Daniel: Excuse me?
Malcolm: Dude seriously? Is she ours?
Drunken Man #1: Well is She? Cause she is a fine looking thing and if she isn't yours I just might...
Daniel slaps Drunken Man #1 across the face cutting him off. He staggers back and Drunken Man #2 walks forward.
Drunken Man #2: Hey....
Malcolm: Let me give you a piece of friendly advice: both of us have had a really really bad day so I would not push us.
Daniel: Why Don't Both of you just walk away.
Drunken Man #1: If you broke my nose, I'll call the cops on you!
Malcolm: If you can remember in the morning.
Daniel laughs,
Drunken Man #1: I'll call them right now!
He takes out a cell phone and Daniel grabs it. He tosses it to the ground and smashes it with his shoe.
Drunken Man #1: How dare you?!
He starts toward Daniel and Malcolm steps in front of the man.
Malcolm: Walk away fellas
Both drunken men look at Malcolm and decide that it is better to just leave. They try to walk off with dignity but end up staggering off.
Malcolm: And remember: Don't drive drunk!
Daniel laughs again and looks at Mary who is looking very scared
Daniel: Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Because if they did I'll call the cops on them. Just give me an excuse.
Mary: No I'm fine, just scared.
Malcolm: Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look like you belong here.
Mary: I don't. I was in town with my family and I got separated.
Daniel: Do you have a cell? Because I could lend you one if you don't.
Mary: None of my family have cell phones.
Malcolm: Really? I didn't know that was possible in today's society.
Daniel: Do you know where they are staying?
Mary: They were going to head back tonight, I don't know what to do.
Daniel: They wouldn't have waited for you?
Mary: They would have assumed I was in one of the other buses.
Malcolm: Your family has to travel in multiple buses? That must be one big family.
Mary: It is.
Daniel: Malcolm do you think Annie would put her up tonight?
Malcolm: Probably.
Mary: I don't want any charity.
Malcolm: No it's cool my sister would probably like the company.
Daniel: Do you want to call her while I go pull the car around?
Malcolm: Yeah. What did you say your name was?
Mary: I'm Mary Phelps.
Malcolm: Nice to meet you, I'm Malcolm Jacobs.
Daniel: And I'm Daniel Nelson.
Mary: Thank you both very much for all you're doing.
Daniel: Least we could do.
Malcolm(on his phone): Annie, hey its me. Ok so you will never guess what happened to me and Daniel as we were walking back home.....
Black out
The House Part 41
Acknowledgements and Author's Note
Yes I know. That was a really weird and pretty bad ending. But it had to end and all will be explained in the sequel which will be written once I think up a plot for it. But it will involve aliens and cats and food and politics and awesomeness. Now I have to thank some people
Obviously the first people I want to thank are my family for giving me life and being behind me for this process of writing a novel in 30 days also if I did not thank them first my mother would probably hire a hit man to track me down and kill me and I quite like life. I also want to thank my friends and specifically my writers' group and my old Mock Newbery Book Club for making me both a better writer and a better person and also for giving me people to name characters after.
This book has numerous characters who are named after friends of mine but I only intentionally from the outset based one character on someone I know and that character is Margret. Margret is based on a girl who I was in a play with and, a few weeks into rehearsals, I had a dream outlining the basic premises for this book. I greatly changed it during the writing process but one character from that dream always stuck with me and that character was Margret who, in the dream, took the appearance of this girl who I was in this play with and didn't know very well.
As the play rehearsals progressed I got to know the girl much better and I realized that she was not the dark and mysterious girl who Margret was originally going to be but rather a nice, happy, funny girl who I then tried to convert Margret into.
I also want to mention two of my other friends who I named characters in the novel off of and who I probably need to apologize to. Brien May and Ben September were named after two of probably the kindest people who I know and two people who I like a great deal. So(because I'm such a great friend) I decided to put them in the book originally as the semi-villains. Yeah I know I'm strange.
Anyway, originally Brien was going to be a raving lunatic and I was going to try and get the reader to despise him with a burning passion. But then I came down sick.
While I was sick I laid in bed and did two things: watch legal dramas and play tetris. When I first was sick I tried to work on this book but I wasn't able to concentrate enough. But I did write a little. And the legal drama tv show that I was watching obsessively seeped into the dialogue that I was writing and Brien began to sound like a prosecuting lawyer.
Now I recovered as most people who are sick do and sat down to get some serious writing done. I continued to write the scene right after Philip's death. As I was writing I realized more and more that Brien had some really good points to make and was a much more interesting character than I originally thought he would be and that is when the story began to spin out of control.
To some writers that might be a terrible thing. And maybe it was, but I sort of liked it. I think that it made it more surprising and more natural. Or maybe it is just impossible to follow, who knows.
Anyway I need to thank Brien and Ben for, hopefully, being good sports. You see, I haven't exactly told Brien yet and Ben was a little annoyed when I told him but he hasn't read the book yet so I'm hoping that he will change his mind..
I also want to thank various music artists who got me through this writing process. The main ones that jump to mind are Billy Bragg(who is the best live act who I have ever seen, he is also probably the fourth live act who I have ever seen so that might not be saying much, but he was fantastically great. And his recorded stuff is also amazing), Matt Nathanson(who can write some really sad love songs and is also hilarious live), Steven Soundheim(who has written some of the best show tunes ever), The Hold Steady(who's acoustic version of Hurricane J is so awesome that I listened to it like twelve times in a row) , Pete Seeger(who's cover of the song What Did You Learn In School Today, originally by Tom Paxton, I have listened to an obscene amount of times), Bad Religion(who wrote a song called Sorrow which I have listened to like thirty times in a row. In case you have not noticed I like to listen to certain songs over and over again), Rise Against(who are good both as a hardcore punk band that screams all the time and as a acoustic band), Stephen Schwartz(who wrote Wicked, do I need to say more?), Steve Earle(who wrote the song The Devils Right Hand which I have listened to....yep you guessed it! An obscene amount of times), Screeching Weasel(who wrote a song called Cool Kids which I...like ok..but seriously have much fun is it to say the words Screeching Weasel, go on say it...come on...ok yeah tell me that isn't fun) and so many others that I can't even think of their names. I also want to thank the websites Grooveshark and Youtube for keeping me in music for this month and, hopefully, for the rest of my life.
I also wish to thank some of my favorite authors for just being so darn awesome. They include, in no particular order: Vivien Vande Velde(Who wrote one of my all time favorite books, Heir Apparent, which I sort of ripped off with the ending of The House and I am not going to apologize because I really sort of hope that she sues me and I'll get to meet her in court.), Janette Rallison(who's books showed me how to write sweet teenage romance), Nick Hornby(who is just great in how he balances the sadness of his plots with humor), Megan Whalen Turner(Who I referenced with the Order Makes Me and I Make Order line. Funny little anecdote here that I will share with you despite the fact that you will probably will not find it funny and almost certainly think that it is self serving and egotistical{I am counting this author's note in the word count as I desperately try to get to 50,000, so I am trying to talk as much as possible. So before I share the possibly hilarious short little story which took place in my life let me say that I wish to thank you from the bottom of my deep deep deep heart and I would also like to quote the incredibly wise Charles Dickens[who I will speak about in a moment] he wrote at the beginning of his masterpiece[which I have never actually read but there are a great deal of words in this paragraph] The Tale Of Two Cities, and this is a direct quote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”} Anyway, I once met her editor at the American Library Association Summer Conference and I totally geeked out. I started threatening her because Megan Whalen Turned publishes all her books so slowly. I then told her to tell Megan Whalen Turner, remember that this was her editor I was yelling at, that I would pay her to write more and she replied “I do pay her”) David Levithan(who is just plain hilarious and is also quite touching. His Are We There Yet is one of the scariest books that I have ever read and Boy meets Boy is one the most interesting. He also showed me that one can write sweet teen touching romance, whether it's gay or straight, without making it too clichéd), Brandon Sanderson(who wrote the Alcatraz books which work both as comedy and as science fiction) Charles Dickens(who gave me so much song writing material and who I just ripped off to bump up my word count) Aaron Sorkin(who is simply one of the best, if not the the best, dialogue writers around. Quite possibly my favorite writer), William Shakespeare(who, among other things, wrote my favorite play, Romeo and Juliet), Suzanne Collins(who changed Young Adult Literature for the better), Agatha Christie(who always kept you on your toes and surprised you at the end) JK Rowling(who is amazing and deserves every penny that she has made and probably more. I watched the Deathly Hallows Part One while I was writing the House and it greatly influenced me. {I also have a really pathetic crush on Emma Watson who plays the character of Hermione Grange. who's favorite book, I found out, is the Little Prince which I happened to have just been in a stage production of. So hey, I can think of much worse things to build a relationship on}).
I also feel the need to mention several tv shows that either helped me get through this month or are just plain awesome and need more viewers. They are The Practice(which is where I got all the legal stuff), The Daily Show(which I spent hours watching while I wrote. In fact, even as I write this now I am watching Jon Stewart, he truly is hilarious), Psych(I watch it at least once a week, it never gets old), Glee(which is purely mindless not always fun but...well I like about one actor in it and that is about it. So I am not totally sure why it is listed here. But it is words which I need), Fawlty Towers(John Cleese is fantastic. Enough said), Babylon Five(a really really good and complex science fiction show.), Agatha Christie's Poirot(David Suchet is fantastic as my favorite detective), Sherlock(a new detective show which updates Sherlock Holmes very well for my generation) Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip(Matthew Perry, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitiford, tv comedy, and all the other fantastic actors who's name I cannot remember, do I need to say any more? I think that I do not), Sports Night(fantastic cast, Aaron Sorkin, and...well, awesomeness), Doctor Who(if you have never heard of Doctor Who I do not even want to talk to you), Family Ties(Michael J Fox as a far right republican and some clever writing, need I say more? Maybe but I can't think of anything else to say it's been about a year since I watched it and....well...word count.), Friends(good cast, decent writing, it's light and fun, deal with it), and The West Wing(we in the tv fandom have a special nickname for this show. We call it pure perfection).
I realize that I have just spent a great deal of time writing something that only about four people will ever read, but hey it's words to add to the old word count. Cheers, ESB
Yes I know. That was a really weird and pretty bad ending. But it had to end and all will be explained in the sequel which will be written once I think up a plot for it. But it will involve aliens and cats and food and politics and awesomeness. Now I have to thank some people
Obviously the first people I want to thank are my family for giving me life and being behind me for this process of writing a novel in 30 days also if I did not thank them first my mother would probably hire a hit man to track me down and kill me and I quite like life. I also want to thank my friends and specifically my writers' group and my old Mock Newbery Book Club for making me both a better writer and a better person and also for giving me people to name characters after.
This book has numerous characters who are named after friends of mine but I only intentionally from the outset based one character on someone I know and that character is Margret. Margret is based on a girl who I was in a play with and, a few weeks into rehearsals, I had a dream outlining the basic premises for this book. I greatly changed it during the writing process but one character from that dream always stuck with me and that character was Margret who, in the dream, took the appearance of this girl who I was in this play with and didn't know very well.
As the play rehearsals progressed I got to know the girl much better and I realized that she was not the dark and mysterious girl who Margret was originally going to be but rather a nice, happy, funny girl who I then tried to convert Margret into.
I also want to mention two of my other friends who I named characters in the novel off of and who I probably need to apologize to. Brien May and Ben September were named after two of probably the kindest people who I know and two people who I like a great deal. So(because I'm such a great friend) I decided to put them in the book originally as the semi-villains. Yeah I know I'm strange.
Anyway, originally Brien was going to be a raving lunatic and I was going to try and get the reader to despise him with a burning passion. But then I came down sick.
While I was sick I laid in bed and did two things: watch legal dramas and play tetris. When I first was sick I tried to work on this book but I wasn't able to concentrate enough. But I did write a little. And the legal drama tv show that I was watching obsessively seeped into the dialogue that I was writing and Brien began to sound like a prosecuting lawyer.
Now I recovered as most people who are sick do and sat down to get some serious writing done. I continued to write the scene right after Philip's death. As I was writing I realized more and more that Brien had some really good points to make and was a much more interesting character than I originally thought he would be and that is when the story began to spin out of control.
To some writers that might be a terrible thing. And maybe it was, but I sort of liked it. I think that it made it more surprising and more natural. Or maybe it is just impossible to follow, who knows.
Anyway I need to thank Brien and Ben for, hopefully, being good sports. You see, I haven't exactly told Brien yet and Ben was a little annoyed when I told him but he hasn't read the book yet so I'm hoping that he will change his mind..
I also want to thank various music artists who got me through this writing process. The main ones that jump to mind are Billy Bragg(who is the best live act who I have ever seen, he is also probably the fourth live act who I have ever seen so that might not be saying much, but he was fantastically great. And his recorded stuff is also amazing), Matt Nathanson(who can write some really sad love songs and is also hilarious live), Steven Soundheim(who has written some of the best show tunes ever), The Hold Steady(who's acoustic version of Hurricane J is so awesome that I listened to it like twelve times in a row) , Pete Seeger(who's cover of the song What Did You Learn In School Today, originally by Tom Paxton, I have listened to an obscene amount of times), Bad Religion(who wrote a song called Sorrow which I have listened to like thirty times in a row. In case you have not noticed I like to listen to certain songs over and over again), Rise Against(who are good both as a hardcore punk band that screams all the time and as a acoustic band), Stephen Schwartz(who wrote Wicked, do I need to say more?), Steve Earle(who wrote the song The Devils Right Hand which I have listened to....yep you guessed it! An obscene amount of times), Screeching Weasel(who wrote a song called Cool Kids which I...like ok..but seriously have much fun is it to say the words Screeching Weasel, go on say it...come on...ok yeah tell me that isn't fun) and so many others that I can't even think of their names. I also want to thank the websites Grooveshark and Youtube for keeping me in music for this month and, hopefully, for the rest of my life.
I also wish to thank some of my favorite authors for just being so darn awesome. They include, in no particular order: Vivien Vande Velde(Who wrote one of my all time favorite books, Heir Apparent, which I sort of ripped off with the ending of The House and I am not going to apologize because I really sort of hope that she sues me and I'll get to meet her in court.), Janette Rallison(who's books showed me how to write sweet teenage romance), Nick Hornby(who is just great in how he balances the sadness of his plots with humor), Megan Whalen Turner(Who I referenced with the Order Makes Me and I Make Order line. Funny little anecdote here that I will share with you despite the fact that you will probably will not find it funny and almost certainly think that it is self serving and egotistical{I am counting this author's note in the word count as I desperately try to get to 50,000, so I am trying to talk as much as possible. So before I share the possibly hilarious short little story which took place in my life let me say that I wish to thank you from the bottom of my deep deep deep heart and I would also like to quote the incredibly wise Charles Dickens[who I will speak about in a moment] he wrote at the beginning of his masterpiece[which I have never actually read but there are a great deal of words in this paragraph] The Tale Of Two Cities, and this is a direct quote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”} Anyway, I once met her editor at the American Library Association Summer Conference and I totally geeked out. I started threatening her because Megan Whalen Turned publishes all her books so slowly. I then told her to tell Megan Whalen Turner, remember that this was her editor I was yelling at, that I would pay her to write more and she replied “I do pay her”) David Levithan(who is just plain hilarious and is also quite touching. His Are We There Yet is one of the scariest books that I have ever read and Boy meets Boy is one the most interesting. He also showed me that one can write sweet teen touching romance, whether it's gay or straight, without making it too clichéd), Brandon Sanderson(who wrote the Alcatraz books which work both as comedy and as science fiction) Charles Dickens(who gave me so much song writing material and who I just ripped off to bump up my word count) Aaron Sorkin(who is simply one of the best, if not the the best, dialogue writers around. Quite possibly my favorite writer), William Shakespeare(who, among other things, wrote my favorite play, Romeo and Juliet), Suzanne Collins(who changed Young Adult Literature for the better), Agatha Christie(who always kept you on your toes and surprised you at the end) JK Rowling(who is amazing and deserves every penny that she has made and probably more. I watched the Deathly Hallows Part One while I was writing the House and it greatly influenced me. {I also have a really pathetic crush on Emma Watson who plays the character of Hermione Grange. who's favorite book, I found out, is the Little Prince which I happened to have just been in a stage production of. So hey, I can think of much worse things to build a relationship on}).
I also feel the need to mention several tv shows that either helped me get through this month or are just plain awesome and need more viewers. They are The Practice(which is where I got all the legal stuff), The Daily Show(which I spent hours watching while I wrote. In fact, even as I write this now I am watching Jon Stewart, he truly is hilarious), Psych(I watch it at least once a week, it never gets old), Glee(which is purely mindless not always fun but...well I like about one actor in it and that is about it. So I am not totally sure why it is listed here. But it is words which I need), Fawlty Towers(John Cleese is fantastic. Enough said), Babylon Five(a really really good and complex science fiction show.), Agatha Christie's Poirot(David Suchet is fantastic as my favorite detective), Sherlock(a new detective show which updates Sherlock Holmes very well for my generation) Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip(Matthew Perry, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitiford, tv comedy, and all the other fantastic actors who's name I cannot remember, do I need to say any more? I think that I do not), Sports Night(fantastic cast, Aaron Sorkin, and...well, awesomeness), Doctor Who(if you have never heard of Doctor Who I do not even want to talk to you), Family Ties(Michael J Fox as a far right republican and some clever writing, need I say more? Maybe but I can't think of anything else to say it's been about a year since I watched it and....well...word count.), Friends(good cast, decent writing, it's light and fun, deal with it), and The West Wing(we in the tv fandom have a special nickname for this show. We call it pure perfection).
I realize that I have just spent a great deal of time writing something that only about four people will ever read, but hey it's words to add to the old word count. Cheers, ESB
The House Part 40
Chapter Six in which Margret wakes up
Darkness surrounded Margret. She did not know how long she had been awake. It could have been 30 seconds it could have been 30 minutes it could have been 30 hours all there was darkness and a strange clicking. She was not sure where she was but she knew that it was very big and totally empty except for her and whatever was making the peculiar clicking noise. Suddenly, out of the darkness came a familiar voice.
“Hello Margret.” The voice said, “It's been a while.”
“What?!” Margret said, turning her head sharply towards the direction which the voice had come from, “You're, you're, you're dead!”
“True.” A different but equally familiar voice said, from a totally different direction, “But then, so am I.”
“You see Margret,” A third voice said from right behind Margret. This voice was the most familiar of them all and the sound of it almost gave Margret a heart attack, “There are more things going on in the House than even the Master Computer knows.”
“How,” Margret asked, suddenly regaining the ability to speak, “Are you all still alive?”
“That is a very, very long story.” Philip said leaning into Margret's ear, “But one that I think you will enjoy.”
End of Book One
Darkness surrounded Margret. She did not know how long she had been awake. It could have been 30 seconds it could have been 30 minutes it could have been 30 hours all there was darkness and a strange clicking. She was not sure where she was but she knew that it was very big and totally empty except for her and whatever was making the peculiar clicking noise. Suddenly, out of the darkness came a familiar voice.
“Hello Margret.” The voice said, “It's been a while.”
“What?!” Margret said, turning her head sharply towards the direction which the voice had come from, “You're, you're, you're dead!”
“True.” A different but equally familiar voice said, from a totally different direction, “But then, so am I.”
“You see Margret,” A third voice said from right behind Margret. This voice was the most familiar of them all and the sound of it almost gave Margret a heart attack, “There are more things going on in the House than even the Master Computer knows.”
“How,” Margret asked, suddenly regaining the ability to speak, “Are you all still alive?”
“That is a very, very long story.” Philip said leaning into Margret's ear, “But one that I think you will enjoy.”
End of Book One
The House Part 39
Chapter Five in which Brien finds something very strange at One One Eight Hawthorn Lane
Brien ran through the streets looking around as he went. He finally stopped at the town square. He looked around wildly.
“How in the name of God,” He said to himself, “Does one get to Hawthorn Lane?”
“Go down Kinshasha road, turn right at Volstead Drive, and then take another right at Kilimanjaro Avenue.”
“Excuse me?” Brien said, looking around.
“Go Down Kinshasha road, turn right at Volstead Drive, the take another right at Kilimanjaro Avenue.”
Brien turned around and around but he could not see anyone.
“Hello?” He said, “Is anyone here?”
“Just go. You need to see what is there.”
“Ok,” Brien said, “Um, thank you.”
“Don't mention it. Now, go.” Brien took off running. He sped down Kinshasha road and took a very fast right at Volstead drive. He ran down that road for about two minutes and then he saw the sign for Kilimanjaro Avenue and turned onto it the first street sign he saw was one for Hawthorn lane. Brien slowed to a walk.
How was he going to do this? Just walk up, knock on the door, and say what? “Hello I'm sorry but my friend just shot your daughter and she wants to see you before she dies.” He located one hundred and eighteen and walked up to the door. He sighed and knocked. He waited a while and, as no one had come to answer the door, he knocked again. Still no one answered. Brien tried to the door knob and it turned. Brien pushed the door open and looked around. The downstairs was dark but upstairs there appeared to be a light on. Brien called up.
“Hello?” He said walking up the stairs, “Is anyone here? Hello?” He walked up to the room with a light on and knocked on the door. The door swung open of its own accord and Brien saw that the room had no one in it. He sighed and was about to turn around when something caught his eye.
In the corner of the room there was a cluster of boxes. On top of the boxes was a machine with a light on top that flashed on and off. On and off. It entranced Brien and he walked toward it. He stretched out his hand and touched it.
“Hello Brien.”
Brien spun around and stared in shock.
“Miss me?”
“What are you doing here?” Brien asked his jaw almost hitting the floor.
“Talking to you, I would think that that would be fairly obvious. Really Brien without me you are kind of out of it.”
“You got shot.” Brien said, staring, “I saw the life drain out of you.”
“Yes you did.”
“Then,” Brien said, “How in the name of all that is holy are you here?”
“Funny you should ask that.”
“Isn't it.”
“It is.”
“Seriously,” Brien said, “How are you here?”
“It might take a while.”
“I have time.” Brien said.
“No you don't Brien. Lord Almighty, there is a girl laying in the snow dying who needs her mother.”
“She is just a computer program!” Brien protested, “She doesn't matter!”
“Are you one hundred percent sure that she is a computer program?”
“Yes!” Brien said, throwing up his arms, “Yes she is a computer program.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” Brien said angrily, “For the Lord's sake! I am one hundred freaking percent sure that she is a computer program?”
“Well, that presents a problem.”
“How so?” Brien asked dismissively
“Seriously Brien? Seriously?”
“Oh My God.” Brien said, his eyes going wide “Is she real?”
“Yep.”
“Lord.” Brien said, looking around wildly, “but...but how?”
“I will explain later but right now you need to get the girl her mother.”
“I don't know where she is.” Brien said helplessly.
“She is in the next room. She won't give you any trouble and when you get back to the girl Lara and Allison will be there. Once she has begun recovering come back here and I will explain. Now go.”
“Ok.” Brien said, nodding, “I'll be back in a little bit.”
“See you then.”
Brien turned and walked out the door. He went into the very next room and found everything was as he had been told it would be.
Brien ran through the streets looking around as he went. He finally stopped at the town square. He looked around wildly.
“How in the name of God,” He said to himself, “Does one get to Hawthorn Lane?”
“Go down Kinshasha road, turn right at Volstead Drive, and then take another right at Kilimanjaro Avenue.”
“Excuse me?” Brien said, looking around.
“Go Down Kinshasha road, turn right at Volstead Drive, the take another right at Kilimanjaro Avenue.”
Brien turned around and around but he could not see anyone.
“Hello?” He said, “Is anyone here?”
“Just go. You need to see what is there.”
“Ok,” Brien said, “Um, thank you.”
“Don't mention it. Now, go.” Brien took off running. He sped down Kinshasha road and took a very fast right at Volstead drive. He ran down that road for about two minutes and then he saw the sign for Kilimanjaro Avenue and turned onto it the first street sign he saw was one for Hawthorn lane. Brien slowed to a walk.
How was he going to do this? Just walk up, knock on the door, and say what? “Hello I'm sorry but my friend just shot your daughter and she wants to see you before she dies.” He located one hundred and eighteen and walked up to the door. He sighed and knocked. He waited a while and, as no one had come to answer the door, he knocked again. Still no one answered. Brien tried to the door knob and it turned. Brien pushed the door open and looked around. The downstairs was dark but upstairs there appeared to be a light on. Brien called up.
“Hello?” He said walking up the stairs, “Is anyone here? Hello?” He walked up to the room with a light on and knocked on the door. The door swung open of its own accord and Brien saw that the room had no one in it. He sighed and was about to turn around when something caught his eye.
In the corner of the room there was a cluster of boxes. On top of the boxes was a machine with a light on top that flashed on and off. On and off. It entranced Brien and he walked toward it. He stretched out his hand and touched it.
“Hello Brien.”
Brien spun around and stared in shock.
“Miss me?”
“What are you doing here?” Brien asked his jaw almost hitting the floor.
“Talking to you, I would think that that would be fairly obvious. Really Brien without me you are kind of out of it.”
“You got shot.” Brien said, staring, “I saw the life drain out of you.”
“Yes you did.”
“Then,” Brien said, “How in the name of all that is holy are you here?”
“Funny you should ask that.”
“Isn't it.”
“It is.”
“Seriously,” Brien said, “How are you here?”
“It might take a while.”
“I have time.” Brien said.
“No you don't Brien. Lord Almighty, there is a girl laying in the snow dying who needs her mother.”
“She is just a computer program!” Brien protested, “She doesn't matter!”
“Are you one hundred percent sure that she is a computer program?”
“Yes!” Brien said, throwing up his arms, “Yes she is a computer program.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” Brien said angrily, “For the Lord's sake! I am one hundred freaking percent sure that she is a computer program?”
“Well, that presents a problem.”
“How so?” Brien asked dismissively
“Seriously Brien? Seriously?”
“Oh My God.” Brien said, his eyes going wide “Is she real?”
“Yep.”
“Lord.” Brien said, looking around wildly, “but...but how?”
“I will explain later but right now you need to get the girl her mother.”
“I don't know where she is.” Brien said helplessly.
“She is in the next room. She won't give you any trouble and when you get back to the girl Lara and Allison will be there. Once she has begun recovering come back here and I will explain. Now go.”
“Ok.” Brien said, nodding, “I'll be back in a little bit.”
“See you then.”
Brien turned and walked out the door. He went into the very next room and found everything was as he had been told it would be.
The House Part 38
Chapter Four in which Matthew meets Marc and Brien and Marc does something terrible
“You killed a police officer?” Brien asked Marc in disbelief as soon as the door was shut.
“And two others, yeah.” Marc said.
“Lord Almighty Marc, what in blazes were you thinking?!” Brien demanded
“It spun out of control.” Marc said, blowing into his hands.
“You don't say.” Brien said sarcastically.
“I woke up in the snow,” Marc explained, “And then this cop comes up and starts shooting at me. I hid and waited for him to go away and then this other cop comes out of nowhere and starts shooting me. So I take him out and then two other people come out and start yelling at me so I take them out as well.” Brien shook his head and they continued to walk.
“Marc!” Someone hissed at them. Both Marc and Brien turned their heads towards the voice and saw a man huddled on the ground beckoning to them. The man was dressed in rags with cloth covering his face and, Brien saw with a start, holding a gun. Marc drew his gun and pointed it at the man.
“What are you?” Marc asked warily, “I mean, who are you?”
“I'm Matthew!” The man said exasperated, “Lord Marc!” He stood up and unwrapped the scarf from his face. Once the cloth came off both Brien and Marc could see that it was in fact Matthew.
“Sorry about that Matt.” Marc said putting the gun back in his coat pocket. “I'm a little on edge today, you see I am being hunted down by the cops because I shot and killed three innocent people.”
“That's nice.” Matthew said looking around.
“Brien, where is Lara, Allison, and Margret?” He demanded, looking at Brien.
“I don't know!” Brien said indignantly, “Why are you asking me?” Matthew opened his mouth to answer and was hit from behind. He cried out and fell backwards, blood dripping down his back. Marc drew his gun and began to fire in the direction that the attack must have come from. He fired six bullets in rapid succession and stopped.
“Dear lord!” He swore and ran over to the people he was shooting at. Brien followed him stopping short when he saw the bodies .
“What did you do?!” He demanded, turning on Marc in a fury. There were three bodies laying in the snow, two males one female. All three of them were children. The oldest, one of the boys, was no older than sixteen and the youngest, the other boy, was no older than ten.
“I thought they were firing at us.” Marc said, running a hand through his hair.
“They were freaking kids!!!” Brien roared, grabbing Marc by the lapels of his jacket and pushing him up against one of the walls, “It didn't seem strange to you that a bunch of kids would be shooting at us?”
“It was instinct!” Marc protested, pushing Brien's hands away, “Matt was hit so I reacted.”
“Think before you shoot!” Brien spat and turned around. He walked back to the bodies and bent down. The girl was still alive but she was seriously wounded and was crying in pain.
“What do you need?” Brien asked, “Tell me what you need and I will get it for you.”
“I want...” The girl said, tears running down her face, “I want my mom, bring me my mom.”
“Tell me where she lives.” Brien said, fighting back tears of his own “Tell me where she lives and I will get her.”
“One.” The girl said, “One. Eight. Hawthorn Lane.”
“I'll be back.” Brien said standing up, “Hang on.” Brien walked back over to Marc and hissed in his ear.
“Find Lara or when I come back you will be the one laying on the ground bleeding.” He turned and began to walk off when Marc's voice stopped him.
“For God's sake Brien, they are just computer programs!” He said venomously, “They can't feel!” He walked over and drew his foot back to kick the girl in the head to prove his point. Before he could kick her however Brien punched him in the face.
Marc fell backwards into the snow and Brien kicked him in the side. Marc doubled up and Brien bent down so that his face was an inch from Marc's.
“Did that hurt?” Brien asked calmly.
“Look,” Marc coughed, “Brien, I'm sorry. I was...I was an idiot. I am sorry I didn't mean to shoot them, I don't shoot kids, Lord, I don't shoot cops. I don't shoot people, I have only fought in like three battles for the entire war. I..I am very truly sorry. I will go try to find Lara.”
“Good.” Brien said and walked off.
“You killed a police officer?” Brien asked Marc in disbelief as soon as the door was shut.
“And two others, yeah.” Marc said.
“Lord Almighty Marc, what in blazes were you thinking?!” Brien demanded
“It spun out of control.” Marc said, blowing into his hands.
“You don't say.” Brien said sarcastically.
“I woke up in the snow,” Marc explained, “And then this cop comes up and starts shooting at me. I hid and waited for him to go away and then this other cop comes out of nowhere and starts shooting me. So I take him out and then two other people come out and start yelling at me so I take them out as well.” Brien shook his head and they continued to walk.
“Marc!” Someone hissed at them. Both Marc and Brien turned their heads towards the voice and saw a man huddled on the ground beckoning to them. The man was dressed in rags with cloth covering his face and, Brien saw with a start, holding a gun. Marc drew his gun and pointed it at the man.
“What are you?” Marc asked warily, “I mean, who are you?”
“I'm Matthew!” The man said exasperated, “Lord Marc!” He stood up and unwrapped the scarf from his face. Once the cloth came off both Brien and Marc could see that it was in fact Matthew.
“Sorry about that Matt.” Marc said putting the gun back in his coat pocket. “I'm a little on edge today, you see I am being hunted down by the cops because I shot and killed three innocent people.”
“That's nice.” Matthew said looking around.
“Brien, where is Lara, Allison, and Margret?” He demanded, looking at Brien.
“I don't know!” Brien said indignantly, “Why are you asking me?” Matthew opened his mouth to answer and was hit from behind. He cried out and fell backwards, blood dripping down his back. Marc drew his gun and began to fire in the direction that the attack must have come from. He fired six bullets in rapid succession and stopped.
“Dear lord!” He swore and ran over to the people he was shooting at. Brien followed him stopping short when he saw the bodies .
“What did you do?!” He demanded, turning on Marc in a fury. There were three bodies laying in the snow, two males one female. All three of them were children. The oldest, one of the boys, was no older than sixteen and the youngest, the other boy, was no older than ten.
“I thought they were firing at us.” Marc said, running a hand through his hair.
“They were freaking kids!!!” Brien roared, grabbing Marc by the lapels of his jacket and pushing him up against one of the walls, “It didn't seem strange to you that a bunch of kids would be shooting at us?”
“It was instinct!” Marc protested, pushing Brien's hands away, “Matt was hit so I reacted.”
“Think before you shoot!” Brien spat and turned around. He walked back to the bodies and bent down. The girl was still alive but she was seriously wounded and was crying in pain.
“What do you need?” Brien asked, “Tell me what you need and I will get it for you.”
“I want...” The girl said, tears running down her face, “I want my mom, bring me my mom.”
“Tell me where she lives.” Brien said, fighting back tears of his own “Tell me where she lives and I will get her.”
“One.” The girl said, “One. Eight. Hawthorn Lane.”
“I'll be back.” Brien said standing up, “Hang on.” Brien walked back over to Marc and hissed in his ear.
“Find Lara or when I come back you will be the one laying on the ground bleeding.” He turned and began to walk off when Marc's voice stopped him.
“For God's sake Brien, they are just computer programs!” He said venomously, “They can't feel!” He walked over and drew his foot back to kick the girl in the head to prove his point. Before he could kick her however Brien punched him in the face.
Marc fell backwards into the snow and Brien kicked him in the side. Marc doubled up and Brien bent down so that his face was an inch from Marc's.
“Did that hurt?” Brien asked calmly.
“Look,” Marc coughed, “Brien, I'm sorry. I was...I was an idiot. I am sorry I didn't mean to shoot them, I don't shoot kids, Lord, I don't shoot cops. I don't shoot people, I have only fought in like three battles for the entire war. I..I am very truly sorry. I will go try to find Lara.”
“Good.” Brien said and walked off.
The House Part 37
Chapter Three in which Marc and Brien meet up
Marc was very worried. So far he had seen twelve police officers who all appeared to be looking for someone and Marc had a good idea who that someone was. He had taken his holster off his belt and stuffed it, and the gun, deep into his jacket pocket. He knew that he should probably just toss it into a snow bank and get rid of the evidence, but he didn't like the idea of being unarmed especially when the Master Computer was not one hundred percent sure if you could survive being killed in the game.
Marc saw a Police Officer turning the corner ahead of him and ducked into an alleyway. He went back into the shadows and pulled one of the two knives on his person out of his belt. He flicked it open and waited. Marc had decided that, if the police officer came this way and he saw Marc, Marc would stab him to death and make it look like a robbery gone bad.
Luckily for both the policeman and Marc the police officer walked right past the alley without stopping. Marc breathed a sigh of relief and flicked the knife shut. He stuck it back in his belt and walked out of the alley. He sighed, creating a cloud of steam, and looked up and down the street.
Most of the buildings on the street were houses and closed shops but, right on the end, was a large wood building that was still lit. Marc sighed again and began to walk towards it. As he got closer he saw that there was a sign hanging on a wooden pole next to the building that read “Rosmerta's Tavern”. Marc stuck his hand into his jacket pocket to reassure himself that the gun was still there. He felt the cold mental handle and took his hand out of the pocket. He sighed for a third time and opened the door.
“Welcome To Reosmerta's Tavern! I am Tal Rosmerta, your friendly neighborhood bartender.” Brien called, “What can I get you?” He looked over at Marc and did a double take. It was the man the police were looking for! He had to contact them without drawing the man's attention. He continued to smile and waited for the man's order.
Marc also had to do a double take, the barman was Brien May but he didn't appear to recognize him.
“Well,” Marc said, matching Brien's jovial tone, “I'm not from around these parts so why don't you pour me a pint of whatever is your most popular drink around here.”
“That would be our ale.” Brien said, handing Marc a tankard, “It is by far our most popular drink.”
“Thank you very much.” Marc said and tried to take a big gulp of the alcohol just like he had seen people do in the movies. He coughed violently and had to spit some of the ale back into his tankard.
“Lord Almighty!” He swore and shook his head, “What are you trying to do, kill me? Lord Brien! I mean, Tal.” Brien was taken aback by the use of his name and looked intently at Marc. Suddenly he gasped and leaned in closer.
“Marc?” He hissed.
“Yeah.” Marc nodded and pushed the tankard away.
“I didn't recognize you.” Brien said looking around, “Look we need to talk..”
“Yes we do.” Marc agreed, “Do you have a back room in this place?”
“Yes.” Brien said, looking around nervously.
“Fantastic.” Marc said, “We can talk there.”
“No we can't” Brien said, snapping his head back to look at Marc.
“Why not?” Marc asked, a little annoyed.
“Because the police just came by and said that they were looking for you.” Brien explained, “And they might come back here and find us. And I don't think either of us want that, thus we have to talk somewhere else.”
“Ok.” Marc said, “Let's go find an alleyway or something.”
“Fine.” Brien said, “Excuse me gents, but I need to step outside for a little bit with a business partner of mine so feel free to get a few drinks on me.” The men in the bar cheered and Marc led Brien out the door.
Marc was very worried. So far he had seen twelve police officers who all appeared to be looking for someone and Marc had a good idea who that someone was. He had taken his holster off his belt and stuffed it, and the gun, deep into his jacket pocket. He knew that he should probably just toss it into a snow bank and get rid of the evidence, but he didn't like the idea of being unarmed especially when the Master Computer was not one hundred percent sure if you could survive being killed in the game.
Marc saw a Police Officer turning the corner ahead of him and ducked into an alleyway. He went back into the shadows and pulled one of the two knives on his person out of his belt. He flicked it open and waited. Marc had decided that, if the police officer came this way and he saw Marc, Marc would stab him to death and make it look like a robbery gone bad.
Luckily for both the policeman and Marc the police officer walked right past the alley without stopping. Marc breathed a sigh of relief and flicked the knife shut. He stuck it back in his belt and walked out of the alley. He sighed, creating a cloud of steam, and looked up and down the street.
Most of the buildings on the street were houses and closed shops but, right on the end, was a large wood building that was still lit. Marc sighed again and began to walk towards it. As he got closer he saw that there was a sign hanging on a wooden pole next to the building that read “Rosmerta's Tavern”. Marc stuck his hand into his jacket pocket to reassure himself that the gun was still there. He felt the cold mental handle and took his hand out of the pocket. He sighed for a third time and opened the door.
“Welcome To Reosmerta's Tavern! I am Tal Rosmerta, your friendly neighborhood bartender.” Brien called, “What can I get you?” He looked over at Marc and did a double take. It was the man the police were looking for! He had to contact them without drawing the man's attention. He continued to smile and waited for the man's order.
Marc also had to do a double take, the barman was Brien May but he didn't appear to recognize him.
“Well,” Marc said, matching Brien's jovial tone, “I'm not from around these parts so why don't you pour me a pint of whatever is your most popular drink around here.”
“That would be our ale.” Brien said, handing Marc a tankard, “It is by far our most popular drink.”
“Thank you very much.” Marc said and tried to take a big gulp of the alcohol just like he had seen people do in the movies. He coughed violently and had to spit some of the ale back into his tankard.
“Lord Almighty!” He swore and shook his head, “What are you trying to do, kill me? Lord Brien! I mean, Tal.” Brien was taken aback by the use of his name and looked intently at Marc. Suddenly he gasped and leaned in closer.
“Marc?” He hissed.
“Yeah.” Marc nodded and pushed the tankard away.
“I didn't recognize you.” Brien said looking around, “Look we need to talk..”
“Yes we do.” Marc agreed, “Do you have a back room in this place?”
“Yes.” Brien said, looking around nervously.
“Fantastic.” Marc said, “We can talk there.”
“No we can't” Brien said, snapping his head back to look at Marc.
“Why not?” Marc asked, a little annoyed.
“Because the police just came by and said that they were looking for you.” Brien explained, “And they might come back here and find us. And I don't think either of us want that, thus we have to talk somewhere else.”
“Ok.” Marc said, “Let's go find an alleyway or something.”
“Fine.” Brien said, “Excuse me gents, but I need to step outside for a little bit with a business partner of mine so feel free to get a few drinks on me.” The men in the bar cheered and Marc led Brien out the door.
The House Part 36
Chapter Two in which Marc gets into a gun fight and kills a few people
Marc woke up laying flat on his back in a snow bank.
“What was that all about?” He said, standing up and rubbing his head, “Guys? Guys?” He looked around. He was alone, the only living person visible as far as the eye could see. Marc looked down at his body and was shocked to see that he was wearing a leather jacket over a shirt for some scary looking music group that hc had never heard of. He reached up to scratch his head and his arm bumped his right ear. There was something metal in it.
Marc felt his other ear and there was something metal in that one as well. He was very confused. He looked down at his body again and saw that he was wearing a belt with a holster attached to it. In the holster was a pistol. Marc drew it and realized that it looked almost identical to Brien's pistol. The only thing different was that Marc's gun didn't have the name plates. Other than that the two guns were exactly the same.
“Hey you,” Someone yelled angrily at Marc, “What in blazes do you think you are doing?” Marc looked up and saw that a man wearing a blue uniform and a silver badge was pointing one hand towards Marc while his other hand was drawing a gun. The man, who Marc realized was probably a police officer, looked very angry and Marc thought that the man might actually shoot him . Marc quickly put the gun back in his holster and raised his hands.
“Officer,” He said calmly, surely this was just a misunderstanding. The policeman probably just freaked when he saw Marc with the gun, “I think there has been a slight misunderstanding. You see I...”
Bang!
The policeman fired his gun at Marc. Luckily for Marc, the policeman had spent the evening drinking in Rosmerta's Tavern with some of his law enforcement buddies and thus was not the shot that he normally would be. The bullet whistled past Marc's left shoulder.
Marc dove to the ground behind the snow back. He jumped up and took cover behind a tree. Marc drew his pistol and waited. He didn't think that shooting a cop would be a good way to begin his time in this place. Maybe the man would just walk off. Marc waited on tender hooks, trying to breath as lightly as possible, tightening his grip on the pistol's handle until his knuckles were white. No sound came for a long while and just as Marc was about to come out from behind his tree he heard a crunch in the snow.
Marc stood closer to the tree and squeezed his gun tighter. Unfortunately instead of squeezing the handle Marc's fingers squeezed very hard on the pistol's trigger.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The pistol fired three times. Marc swore quietly and fell to the ground. He rolled down the small hill that was behind the tree and came to rest face down in a snow bank. He crawled up the snow bank so that he could see what was going on. A different man, also wearing the blue uniform, was standing by the tree that Marc had just rolled away from. The man was holding a small pistol. He saw Marc and began to shoot. Marc dropped back below the snow bank as the bullets ripped into it.
Marc sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to kill the police officer. He stood up and began to shoot. The police officer returned fire but Marc had a fair amount of cover and the police officer had none. Marc only had to fire two shots.
The police officer screamed and fell to the ground his blood seeping into the snow, turning it from white to red.
Marc sighed and walked over to the body.
“Cop killer!” Someone yelled at Marc, “Cop Killer!”
Marc looked up and saw an old woman wearing multiple layers of raggedy clothes pointing a long crooked finger at Marc. He sighed again and shot the woman in the chest. She died instantly and fell to the ground, blood pouring down the front of her dress.
“What's going on?” A man asked coming over the hill, “I just heard a gun shot, Mom?” As soon as Marc could see him, he shot him in the chest. The man fell to ground and began to roll down the hill leaving a bloody trail in the snow behind him . He came to rest about a foot from Marc. He raise his head to look at him and Marc shoot him again, this time in the throat. The man dropped his head and was still.
Marc looked down the man's body and laughed a humorless laugh.
“Man,” He said to himself, “Today isn't a great day for my moral fiber is it? I've shot a policeman, an old woman, and a totally innocent man.” He shook his head and reloaded his gun. He closed it, cocked it, and replaced the gun in its holster. He brushed the snow off his leather jacket and walked back up the hill.
Marc woke up laying flat on his back in a snow bank.
“What was that all about?” He said, standing up and rubbing his head, “Guys? Guys?” He looked around. He was alone, the only living person visible as far as the eye could see. Marc looked down at his body and was shocked to see that he was wearing a leather jacket over a shirt for some scary looking music group that hc had never heard of. He reached up to scratch his head and his arm bumped his right ear. There was something metal in it.
Marc felt his other ear and there was something metal in that one as well. He was very confused. He looked down at his body again and saw that he was wearing a belt with a holster attached to it. In the holster was a pistol. Marc drew it and realized that it looked almost identical to Brien's pistol. The only thing different was that Marc's gun didn't have the name plates. Other than that the two guns were exactly the same.
“Hey you,” Someone yelled angrily at Marc, “What in blazes do you think you are doing?” Marc looked up and saw that a man wearing a blue uniform and a silver badge was pointing one hand towards Marc while his other hand was drawing a gun. The man, who Marc realized was probably a police officer, looked very angry and Marc thought that the man might actually shoot him . Marc quickly put the gun back in his holster and raised his hands.
“Officer,” He said calmly, surely this was just a misunderstanding. The policeman probably just freaked when he saw Marc with the gun, “I think there has been a slight misunderstanding. You see I...”
Bang!
The policeman fired his gun at Marc. Luckily for Marc, the policeman had spent the evening drinking in Rosmerta's Tavern with some of his law enforcement buddies and thus was not the shot that he normally would be. The bullet whistled past Marc's left shoulder.
Marc dove to the ground behind the snow back. He jumped up and took cover behind a tree. Marc drew his pistol and waited. He didn't think that shooting a cop would be a good way to begin his time in this place. Maybe the man would just walk off. Marc waited on tender hooks, trying to breath as lightly as possible, tightening his grip on the pistol's handle until his knuckles were white. No sound came for a long while and just as Marc was about to come out from behind his tree he heard a crunch in the snow.
Marc stood closer to the tree and squeezed his gun tighter. Unfortunately instead of squeezing the handle Marc's fingers squeezed very hard on the pistol's trigger.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The pistol fired three times. Marc swore quietly and fell to the ground. He rolled down the small hill that was behind the tree and came to rest face down in a snow bank. He crawled up the snow bank so that he could see what was going on. A different man, also wearing the blue uniform, was standing by the tree that Marc had just rolled away from. The man was holding a small pistol. He saw Marc and began to shoot. Marc dropped back below the snow bank as the bullets ripped into it.
Marc sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to kill the police officer. He stood up and began to shoot. The police officer returned fire but Marc had a fair amount of cover and the police officer had none. Marc only had to fire two shots.
The police officer screamed and fell to the ground his blood seeping into the snow, turning it from white to red.
Marc sighed and walked over to the body.
“Cop killer!” Someone yelled at Marc, “Cop Killer!”
Marc looked up and saw an old woman wearing multiple layers of raggedy clothes pointing a long crooked finger at Marc. He sighed again and shot the woman in the chest. She died instantly and fell to the ground, blood pouring down the front of her dress.
“What's going on?” A man asked coming over the hill, “I just heard a gun shot, Mom?” As soon as Marc could see him, he shot him in the chest. The man fell to ground and began to roll down the hill leaving a bloody trail in the snow behind him . He came to rest about a foot from Marc. He raise his head to look at him and Marc shoot him again, this time in the throat. The man dropped his head and was still.
Marc looked down the man's body and laughed a humorless laugh.
“Man,” He said to himself, “Today isn't a great day for my moral fiber is it? I've shot a policeman, an old woman, and a totally innocent man.” He shook his head and reloaded his gun. He closed it, cocked it, and replaced the gun in its holster. He brushed the snow off his leather jacket and walked back up the hill.
The House Part 35
Part Eight
Virtual Reality Gaming
Chapter One in which The Master Computer explains why it has brought them all there
“This is a game that I have been looking forward to playing for a long time.” The Master Computer said gleefully rubbing his hands together, “I have been working on this for years. Here is the basic premises, and please be kind about it because I have been working on this for a long time, by the way Allison that is Prof. Lucious' dedication and Cameron's love of fun seeping through.” Allison laughed while the others looked confused and The Master Computer smiled a winning smile and continued to speak.
“This program is a RPG, Role Playing Game to those who are not in the know, and you are will play characters. The background of this game is that you are members of an elite group of government agents who's job is to investigate threats to international security. You have been given the job of arresting the man who seized power of a small eastern European country, I believe I named it Zazara. You can topple it in a number of ways, basically you can do anything as long as you don't get killed. I will be playing the dictator that you have to arrest. Any questions?”
“I have one.” Brien said raising his hand, “If we get killed in the program do we die in real life?”
“Actually,” The Master Computer said looking a little surprised, “I don't know.”
“How can you not know?” Allison asked, looking a little nervous.
“Well,” The Master Computer said, “You see I have never been killed in the game. So I don't know what happens. But I don't see why you would die in real life. What I would think would happen is that the game ends for you and your consciousnesses is transferred back into your body, same as what would happen if you were not killed and just won the game, but honestly, I don't really know. Sorry, do you guys have any other questions?”
“Can we kill you?” Margret asked, “In the game I mean, instead of arresting you?”
“Yes.” The Master Computer said nodding , “You can kill my character but I must warn you that I have some pretty elite and ruthless body guards and they will try to take you guys out if you attack me. Are you guys ready to begin now?”
“Yes.” Brien said, looking around at his companion, “I believe we are.”
“Very good.” The Master Computer said and snapped his fingers. The Elite Silver Wolf disappeared.
“And now,” The Master Computer said rubbing his hands together, “and now.” He smiled to himself, turned on his heel, and strode out of the watch tower while humming a little tune to himself.
Virtual Reality Gaming
Chapter One in which The Master Computer explains why it has brought them all there
“This is a game that I have been looking forward to playing for a long time.” The Master Computer said gleefully rubbing his hands together, “I have been working on this for years. Here is the basic premises, and please be kind about it because I have been working on this for a long time, by the way Allison that is Prof. Lucious' dedication and Cameron's love of fun seeping through.” Allison laughed while the others looked confused and The Master Computer smiled a winning smile and continued to speak.
“This program is a RPG, Role Playing Game to those who are not in the know, and you are will play characters. The background of this game is that you are members of an elite group of government agents who's job is to investigate threats to international security. You have been given the job of arresting the man who seized power of a small eastern European country, I believe I named it Zazara. You can topple it in a number of ways, basically you can do anything as long as you don't get killed. I will be playing the dictator that you have to arrest. Any questions?”
“I have one.” Brien said raising his hand, “If we get killed in the program do we die in real life?”
“Actually,” The Master Computer said looking a little surprised, “I don't know.”
“How can you not know?” Allison asked, looking a little nervous.
“Well,” The Master Computer said, “You see I have never been killed in the game. So I don't know what happens. But I don't see why you would die in real life. What I would think would happen is that the game ends for you and your consciousnesses is transferred back into your body, same as what would happen if you were not killed and just won the game, but honestly, I don't really know. Sorry, do you guys have any other questions?”
“Can we kill you?” Margret asked, “In the game I mean, instead of arresting you?”
“Yes.” The Master Computer said nodding , “You can kill my character but I must warn you that I have some pretty elite and ruthless body guards and they will try to take you guys out if you attack me. Are you guys ready to begin now?”
“Yes.” Brien said, looking around at his companion, “I believe we are.”
“Very good.” The Master Computer said and snapped his fingers. The Elite Silver Wolf disappeared.
“And now,” The Master Computer said rubbing his hands together, “and now.” He smiled to himself, turned on his heel, and strode out of the watch tower while humming a little tune to himself.
The House Part 34
Chapter Four in which Allison and the Master Computer have a conversation
“What happened?” Allison asked, sitting up from the ground and looking around, “Why did we all pass out?” She was laying in a snowy field. There were only two buildings on the horizon. One was a tall tower and the other was a giant stone castle.
“I am afraid that your passing out was my doing.” A man wearing a gray overcoat, a crisp black suit, glasses, a top hat and a silver tie said appearing out of nowhere and extending a hand to help Allison to her feet, “I had to knock you all out to put all of your consciousnesses into this little virtual reality program I came up with. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable.
“No it was fine.” Allison said looking around, “Where is everyone?”
“They are in the watch tower.” The man said, brushing snow of his coat, “Getting ready to begin. Would you follow me please?”
“Sure,” Allison said.
“Thank you very much.” The man said and began to walk towards the Tower with Allison following close behind. Snow was falling gently and the man, who now that Allison thought about it was probably not a man at all but the Master Computer in some Avatar form, pulled an umbrella out of nowhere and held it over Allison.
“Thank you very much.” Allison shivered.
“No problem.” The Master Computer said, “Though I must say that I am resisting the urge to talk about how terrible the White Witch is.”
“What?” Allison said confused, What in the world was he talking about?
“Forget it.” That Master Computer said, smiling a little, “It was a bad joke.”
“You know,” Allison said, looking at the Master Computer, “You are really nothing like what I thought you would be like when I first heard about you.
“You mean other than the fact that I have arms and legs and, if I do say so myself, a stunningly handsome face?” The Master Computer asked grinning.
“No!” Allison said laughing.
“You expected something that was called the Master Computer to have arms and legs?” The Master asked with his eyebrows raised, “That seems to be very unlikely.”
“Of course I didn't expect you to have arms and legs and stuff.” Allison said laughing some more, “I know that the body that you are is just an avatar or something. But what I meant was that your personality wasn't what I expected it to be, if that makes any sense.”
“Actually this body is a recreation of Cameron Hawthorn's, so it's not exactly an Avatar ” The Master Computer said, “Cameron was Professor Lucious' grandson and his pride and joy. Cameron and his grandfather were almost inseparable. But then the young man decided to run for Congress. He was a moderate and reasonable voice in what was fast becoming a very nasty and partisan political atmosphere. Both the Diamonds and the Violets attacked him and attacked him and attacked him. The worst attack was that he, a married father of three, had been sleeping with his secretary, a married mother of two who also happened to be a lesbian. The fact that the attack was totally and completely false didn't stop Cameron's wife from leaving him or the public from voting against him. He was so distraught that he went to a bar one night with the intention of buying a drink and poisoning it, it was quite a popular way of killing oneself at the time, but just as he was about to drop the poison in the drink his cell phone rang and it was his grandfather. His grandfather, Prof. Lucious, wanted to talk to him about some class he was teaching, totally unaware of the fact that his grandson was about to commit suicide. Cameron began to weep and confessed everything to his grandfather and Prof Lucious talked him out of it. Some Violet was over by the bar and overheard that Cameron was talking to the famous leader of the Diamonds and walked over to him. The Violet grabbed Cameron and forced him outside. He then put the cell phone on speakerphone and began to beat Cameron up. Prof. Lucious was forced to listen, totally unable to do anything. Finally the Violet killed Cameron and carved a violet into his chest, forehead, and back with a steak knife.”
“That's sick!” Allison said, looking totally disgusted, “Is that why Prof. Lucious got so angry at the world?”
“Yep.” The Master Computer said, “But anyway, the reason my personality is different than what you would think it would be is that, unlike everyone believes, I am not Prof. Lucious or at least not completely. When his consciousness went into me he was thinking of Cameron very hard. So I am a mixture of Prof. Lucious and Cameron. I like to think that I have the best of both of them but that might just be Prof. Lucious' helium filled ego talking.” Allison laughed and the Master Computer smiled
“And that is Cameron's sense of humor talking.” The Master Computer said folding in the umbrella as they walked into the tower's doorway, “And now we have all arrived so it is time for me to explain why I have brought you all here.”
“What happened?” Allison asked, sitting up from the ground and looking around, “Why did we all pass out?” She was laying in a snowy field. There were only two buildings on the horizon. One was a tall tower and the other was a giant stone castle.
“I am afraid that your passing out was my doing.” A man wearing a gray overcoat, a crisp black suit, glasses, a top hat and a silver tie said appearing out of nowhere and extending a hand to help Allison to her feet, “I had to knock you all out to put all of your consciousnesses into this little virtual reality program I came up with. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable.
“No it was fine.” Allison said looking around, “Where is everyone?”
“They are in the watch tower.” The man said, brushing snow of his coat, “Getting ready to begin. Would you follow me please?”
“Sure,” Allison said.
“Thank you very much.” The man said and began to walk towards the Tower with Allison following close behind. Snow was falling gently and the man, who now that Allison thought about it was probably not a man at all but the Master Computer in some Avatar form, pulled an umbrella out of nowhere and held it over Allison.
“Thank you very much.” Allison shivered.
“No problem.” The Master Computer said, “Though I must say that I am resisting the urge to talk about how terrible the White Witch is.”
“What?” Allison said confused, What in the world was he talking about?
“Forget it.” That Master Computer said, smiling a little, “It was a bad joke.”
“You know,” Allison said, looking at the Master Computer, “You are really nothing like what I thought you would be like when I first heard about you.
“You mean other than the fact that I have arms and legs and, if I do say so myself, a stunningly handsome face?” The Master Computer asked grinning.
“No!” Allison said laughing.
“You expected something that was called the Master Computer to have arms and legs?” The Master asked with his eyebrows raised, “That seems to be very unlikely.”
“Of course I didn't expect you to have arms and legs and stuff.” Allison said laughing some more, “I know that the body that you are is just an avatar or something. But what I meant was that your personality wasn't what I expected it to be, if that makes any sense.”
“Actually this body is a recreation of Cameron Hawthorn's, so it's not exactly an Avatar ” The Master Computer said, “Cameron was Professor Lucious' grandson and his pride and joy. Cameron and his grandfather were almost inseparable. But then the young man decided to run for Congress. He was a moderate and reasonable voice in what was fast becoming a very nasty and partisan political atmosphere. Both the Diamonds and the Violets attacked him and attacked him and attacked him. The worst attack was that he, a married father of three, had been sleeping with his secretary, a married mother of two who also happened to be a lesbian. The fact that the attack was totally and completely false didn't stop Cameron's wife from leaving him or the public from voting against him. He was so distraught that he went to a bar one night with the intention of buying a drink and poisoning it, it was quite a popular way of killing oneself at the time, but just as he was about to drop the poison in the drink his cell phone rang and it was his grandfather. His grandfather, Prof. Lucious, wanted to talk to him about some class he was teaching, totally unaware of the fact that his grandson was about to commit suicide. Cameron began to weep and confessed everything to his grandfather and Prof Lucious talked him out of it. Some Violet was over by the bar and overheard that Cameron was talking to the famous leader of the Diamonds and walked over to him. The Violet grabbed Cameron and forced him outside. He then put the cell phone on speakerphone and began to beat Cameron up. Prof. Lucious was forced to listen, totally unable to do anything. Finally the Violet killed Cameron and carved a violet into his chest, forehead, and back with a steak knife.”
“That's sick!” Allison said, looking totally disgusted, “Is that why Prof. Lucious got so angry at the world?”
“Yep.” The Master Computer said, “But anyway, the reason my personality is different than what you would think it would be is that, unlike everyone believes, I am not Prof. Lucious or at least not completely. When his consciousness went into me he was thinking of Cameron very hard. So I am a mixture of Prof. Lucious and Cameron. I like to think that I have the best of both of them but that might just be Prof. Lucious' helium filled ego talking.” Allison laughed and the Master Computer smiled
“And that is Cameron's sense of humor talking.” The Master Computer said folding in the umbrella as they walked into the tower's doorway, “And now we have all arrived so it is time for me to explain why I have brought you all here.”
The House Part 33
Chapter Three in which the attack begins
“On the Count of three.” Brien said holding up his hand. The others nodded and held their weapons tightly. The Door to the Floor -20 stood in front of them. It was a thick door that was locked shut. The Elite Silver Wolf Squad, as Marc, Matthew, and Brien had decided to call the group much to the annoyance of the female members of the Squad, had taken the elevator from the Top Floor of the House down to Floor -one. From there they proceeded to Floor -19 where the Door to Floor-20 was. Floor -20 was the first of what Brien had termed 'the Computer Floors'. Nobody was totally sure how to get through the door. The male members of the Squad tried to kick it down and the female members tried to pick the lock. Neither method succeed. Finally Brien suggest just trying to shoot the part of the door near to the lock. Nobody could think of a better idea so here they were.
“One.” Brien said putting down one finger.
“Two.” He put down another. Marc, Ava, and Allison raised their assault rifles and Matthew, Lara and Margret drew their pistols and pointed them at the door. Brien took a deep breath and drew his pistol.
“Three.” He said quietly and everybody opened fire. The door was strong and thick and old but it was no match for five angry people with high powered firearms. Marc and Allison emptied a round into the door in about 30 seconds and both dropped to one knee to reload. Matthew and Margret emptied their guns into the door as well but still the thing stood there just as big and menacing as before. Brien grimaced and fired four times. The first bullet smashed into the door about a foot above the lock leaving a huge crater. The second hit the door three inches to the left of the lock leaving another huge crater. The third hit the door about an inch and a half to the right of the lock. This bullet did not stop at the door and went straight through it, leaving a large hold behind. The fourth bullet hit the lock dead on and it exploded. Shards of metal through everywhere. Everyone cheered and applauded.
“Thank you, thank you.” Brien said smiling, waving away the praise, “I want to thank all the little people.” Everyone laughed and Brien kicked the door open. He holstered his gun and began to run. The other members of The Elite Silver Wolf Squad followed him. They did not get far before a booming voice stopped them.
“Hello.” The Voice said, “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“Where are you?” Matthew asked, looking around warily.
“Who are you?” Allison said, also looking around.
“I Am the Great And Powerful Oz!” The Voice boomed, “And I Need you To Kill the Wicked Witch of The West and Bring Me Her Broomstick!”
“What?” Margret asked, a little perplexed. A strange noise came next and it took the Elite Silver Wolf Squad a little while to realize it was laughter. The Voice was laughing.
“Pardon my little jokes.” The voice said after it stopped laughing, “I can't help my sense of humor, I inherited it, it aint nothin' but a family thing.”
“Are you the Master Computer?” Matthew asked pointing his gun at the ceiling.
“No,” The Voice said, “I am Peter Parker, nerdy, unreliable, newspaper photographer and science student by day but by night I swing through New York City as The Amazing Spiderman!!” Again the Voice laughed.
“Of course I am the Master Computer.” The voice said after it was done laughing at its own joke, “And you are Marc, Matthew, Margret, Lara, Ava, Brien, and Allison or should I say the Elite Silver Wolf Squad, groovy name by the way, I totally dig it.” Everyone looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. How did it know all of this? They had decided on the name less that an hour ago, was it listening into them the whole time?
“Oh this is so much fun.”The Master Computer said, sighing, “A bunch of old friends getting together and just shooting the breeze but I am a very busy machine, I do have to plan world domination after all and you wouldn't believe how much work it is! You have to take it country by country and decide whether you should try and get them to side with you or attack them or just leave them be until later, it is all very time consuming.”
“So without further ado,” The Master Computer continued, “Let us get to the matter at hand. You all want to take me out and I really quite like being in. So as you can imagine that creates a bit of conflict, but that is not the end of the world. We can overcome it, we are all reasonable people, well technically I am not a person but I have just as much intelligence and personality as one so I think that I should count as one.” Matthew looked at Margret with his eyebrows raised. This was very odd. Margret shrugged. Matthew looked over at Marc and saw that he was laughing. Brien was standing next to him also laughing. Matthew shook his head perplexed and annoyed, they needed to take this more seriously.
“So here is how I decided to settle this.” The Master Computer said, “We are going to have a competition, a war game if you will. We will divide into teams. Your team against mine or rather me. And whichever team wins the war game will win the real thing. If I win you will all go away and never try to take me out again. But if you win I will open up the doors.” Matthew shook his head. No way was he going to let some crazed machine mess around with him. Anyway how could he be sure that the Master Computer would follow through.
“I know the number one thought on Matthew's mind right now,” The Master Computer said, “And I am not going to talk about it on principle, really Matt you have a major problem. My God you are far too young to be thinking such violent thoughts! You are only 16 for God's Sake! To want to cut someone's throat with a razor while shaving them and then eat their liver with fava beans and bake the rest of the body into a meat pie all the while singing cool show tunes is just plain sick. I really think that you should check back into the mental ward, cannibalism is a nasty nasty thing.” The Master Computer laughed while everyone stared at Matthew. Matthew growled and began to speak but the Master Computer cut him off.
“Now,” The Master Computer continued “I will address the number two thought on your mind right now. How can you be sure that I will follow through? It is a perfectly reasonable question. Here is my answer: Because I Freakin' Say I Will! Also because if you don't play along I will gas you all. So shall we begin?”
“Oh we shall.” Matthew sneered and opened fire. He had seen a speaker on the wall that the Master Computer's voice was coming out of. He emptied his pistol, tossed it to the ground, and began to fire with his rifle.
“Nooooo!” The Master Computer screamed, “Please Stop! Please please please! You're killing me! You're killing me!”
“Die you evil manipulative artificial machine!” Matthew screamed in triumph reloading his assault rifle and continuing to shoot.
“NOOOOOOOO!” The Master Computer screamed and then fell silent. Matthew dropped his gun and looked around.
“My God,” He said, running his hands through his hair, “I did it, I killed the Master Computer.”
“Technically you can't kill a computer.” The Master Computer said.. Everyone jumped and looked around. The Master Computer roared with laughter.
“Lord,” It said, “You should have seen the expression on your faces. Sweet God it was classic!” It laughed some more and then it spoke again.
“Anyway,” The Master Computer said gleefully, “Let the games begin!” With that every single member of the Elite Silver Wolf Squad fell to the ground unconscious.
“On the Count of three.” Brien said holding up his hand. The others nodded and held their weapons tightly. The Door to the Floor -20 stood in front of them. It was a thick door that was locked shut. The Elite Silver Wolf Squad, as Marc, Matthew, and Brien had decided to call the group much to the annoyance of the female members of the Squad, had taken the elevator from the Top Floor of the House down to Floor -one. From there they proceeded to Floor -19 where the Door to Floor-20 was. Floor -20 was the first of what Brien had termed 'the Computer Floors'. Nobody was totally sure how to get through the door. The male members of the Squad tried to kick it down and the female members tried to pick the lock. Neither method succeed. Finally Brien suggest just trying to shoot the part of the door near to the lock. Nobody could think of a better idea so here they were.
“One.” Brien said putting down one finger.
“Two.” He put down another. Marc, Ava, and Allison raised their assault rifles and Matthew, Lara and Margret drew their pistols and pointed them at the door. Brien took a deep breath and drew his pistol.
“Three.” He said quietly and everybody opened fire. The door was strong and thick and old but it was no match for five angry people with high powered firearms. Marc and Allison emptied a round into the door in about 30 seconds and both dropped to one knee to reload. Matthew and Margret emptied their guns into the door as well but still the thing stood there just as big and menacing as before. Brien grimaced and fired four times. The first bullet smashed into the door about a foot above the lock leaving a huge crater. The second hit the door three inches to the left of the lock leaving another huge crater. The third hit the door about an inch and a half to the right of the lock. This bullet did not stop at the door and went straight through it, leaving a large hold behind. The fourth bullet hit the lock dead on and it exploded. Shards of metal through everywhere. Everyone cheered and applauded.
“Thank you, thank you.” Brien said smiling, waving away the praise, “I want to thank all the little people.” Everyone laughed and Brien kicked the door open. He holstered his gun and began to run. The other members of The Elite Silver Wolf Squad followed him. They did not get far before a booming voice stopped them.
“Hello.” The Voice said, “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“Where are you?” Matthew asked, looking around warily.
“Who are you?” Allison said, also looking around.
“I Am the Great And Powerful Oz!” The Voice boomed, “And I Need you To Kill the Wicked Witch of The West and Bring Me Her Broomstick!”
“What?” Margret asked, a little perplexed. A strange noise came next and it took the Elite Silver Wolf Squad a little while to realize it was laughter. The Voice was laughing.
“Pardon my little jokes.” The voice said after it stopped laughing, “I can't help my sense of humor, I inherited it, it aint nothin' but a family thing.”
“Are you the Master Computer?” Matthew asked pointing his gun at the ceiling.
“No,” The Voice said, “I am Peter Parker, nerdy, unreliable, newspaper photographer and science student by day but by night I swing through New York City as The Amazing Spiderman!!” Again the Voice laughed.
“Of course I am the Master Computer.” The voice said after it was done laughing at its own joke, “And you are Marc, Matthew, Margret, Lara, Ava, Brien, and Allison or should I say the Elite Silver Wolf Squad, groovy name by the way, I totally dig it.” Everyone looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. How did it know all of this? They had decided on the name less that an hour ago, was it listening into them the whole time?
“Oh this is so much fun.”The Master Computer said, sighing, “A bunch of old friends getting together and just shooting the breeze but I am a very busy machine, I do have to plan world domination after all and you wouldn't believe how much work it is! You have to take it country by country and decide whether you should try and get them to side with you or attack them or just leave them be until later, it is all very time consuming.”
“So without further ado,” The Master Computer continued, “Let us get to the matter at hand. You all want to take me out and I really quite like being in. So as you can imagine that creates a bit of conflict, but that is not the end of the world. We can overcome it, we are all reasonable people, well technically I am not a person but I have just as much intelligence and personality as one so I think that I should count as one.” Matthew looked at Margret with his eyebrows raised. This was very odd. Margret shrugged. Matthew looked over at Marc and saw that he was laughing. Brien was standing next to him also laughing. Matthew shook his head perplexed and annoyed, they needed to take this more seriously.
“So here is how I decided to settle this.” The Master Computer said, “We are going to have a competition, a war game if you will. We will divide into teams. Your team against mine or rather me. And whichever team wins the war game will win the real thing. If I win you will all go away and never try to take me out again. But if you win I will open up the doors.” Matthew shook his head. No way was he going to let some crazed machine mess around with him. Anyway how could he be sure that the Master Computer would follow through.
“I know the number one thought on Matthew's mind right now,” The Master Computer said, “And I am not going to talk about it on principle, really Matt you have a major problem. My God you are far too young to be thinking such violent thoughts! You are only 16 for God's Sake! To want to cut someone's throat with a razor while shaving them and then eat their liver with fava beans and bake the rest of the body into a meat pie all the while singing cool show tunes is just plain sick. I really think that you should check back into the mental ward, cannibalism is a nasty nasty thing.” The Master Computer laughed while everyone stared at Matthew. Matthew growled and began to speak but the Master Computer cut him off.
“Now,” The Master Computer continued “I will address the number two thought on your mind right now. How can you be sure that I will follow through? It is a perfectly reasonable question. Here is my answer: Because I Freakin' Say I Will! Also because if you don't play along I will gas you all. So shall we begin?”
“Oh we shall.” Matthew sneered and opened fire. He had seen a speaker on the wall that the Master Computer's voice was coming out of. He emptied his pistol, tossed it to the ground, and began to fire with his rifle.
“Nooooo!” The Master Computer screamed, “Please Stop! Please please please! You're killing me! You're killing me!”
“Die you evil manipulative artificial machine!” Matthew screamed in triumph reloading his assault rifle and continuing to shoot.
“NOOOOOOOO!” The Master Computer screamed and then fell silent. Matthew dropped his gun and looked around.
“My God,” He said, running his hands through his hair, “I did it, I killed the Master Computer.”
“Technically you can't kill a computer.” The Master Computer said.. Everyone jumped and looked around. The Master Computer roared with laughter.
“Lord,” It said, “You should have seen the expression on your faces. Sweet God it was classic!” It laughed some more and then it spoke again.
“Anyway,” The Master Computer said gleefully, “Let the games begin!” With that every single member of the Elite Silver Wolf Squad fell to the ground unconscious.
The House Part 32
Chapter Two in which there is some conflict and Marc makes some very reasonable points
Brien loaded his Zeta 1457 Assault rifle and cocked it. It was a beautiful firearm and Brien had kept it in very good repair. He polished it every three days for at least half an hour and he cleaned all the parts of the gun every Sunday for about an hour. The gun had been made for Brien specifically. In fact the gun was based on a design that Brien had created. It was very light but contained twice as many bullets as most assault rifles. It also was extraordinarily sturdy. Unlike most assault rifles the strap was locked into the gun secured by fourteen different clasps and straps so it was nearly impossible for the gun to fall off during the middle of a battle.
Brien slung the rifle over his shoulder and drew his Beta nine pistol. Unlike the rifle to handgun was not in pristine condition. It was bumped and scratched. The pistol was also quite old, it had been built for Christopher August, one of the first Head Foreman. The gun was used by Christopher August back when he was just a regular Foreman to put down the Anarchy Riots. After the Anarchy Riots ended he was named Head Foreman and proceed to make the position much more important and influential. The position remained powerful until Christopher's death. The gun was then placed in The House History Museum and the Teachers started to chisel away at the Foremen's power. This continued until Brien became Head Foreman. This first thing that he did after assuming the position was to get Christopher's gun out of the museum. He had always looked up to Christopher and was deeply deeply honored to use his gun.
The pistol was from a different time and it was built very differently. Modern handguns were small, compact, and light, The Beta nine, on the other hand, was a hefty gun that was extremely powerful. If someone shot you with that gun you were going down. Brien had once shot a man in the shoulder during a stand off with the pistol and the bullet had passed man's shoulder, shattering the bone into hundreds of little pieces, and hit the man standing behind him.
The barrel of the Beta nine was very long and thick, The handle was stocky and it had a name plate screwed on to the right hand side of it when you are holding it as if to shoot. The name plate hung vertically and read “Insurance Owner: Christopher August Make: Beta Model: Nine Year of Manufacture: 2100 I Make Order.” On the left hand side of the handle was another name plate that also hung vertically and read “Brien May Make: beta Model: nine Year of Possession: 2245 Order Makes Me.”
Brien loaded the gun and placed it back in his belt holster. He sighed and looked around at his companions. Matthew, Marc, Ava, Lara and Allison were still loading their guns but Margret was also already done.
“You ready?” She asked as she tossed him a leather jacket that doubled as a bulletproof vest.
“Not really.” He said pulling it on, “What about you?”
“I have to admit that I have in fact been more ready.” Marget said as she tossed Brien three closed switch blades. Brien laughed and caught the knives. He flicked the knives open and began to juggle them. Margret, Marc, and Allison laughed and began to applaud. Lara looked a little concerned and Matthew grimaced and shook his head, obviously greatly annoyed.
“Careful Brien,'' he said acidly, “You don't want to drop any of them, you could cut and hurt yourself quite badly.”
“Why Matt,” Brien said, smiling and continuing to juggle the knives, “I am getting the impression that you don't really like me all that much, I can't imagine that is the case but.....” He trailed off and stared at Matthew with his eyebrows raised. Matthew didn't back down an inch.
“It is the case.” Matthew said, smiling a sickly sweet smile, “I honestly, truly, and completely don't like you all that much. In fact as soon as we are finished with this mission I am going to leave the House and I hope and I have prayed to every single higher being that has ever been worshiped by any member of the human race who's name I could remember that I will never have the misfortune of meeting you again. I also hope, and I also have prayed, that you will die a extraordinarily painful death and I hope that you die it as soon as possible. You are a sorry excuse for a human being and an extraordinary waster of oxygen. In fact I am so embarrassed and ashamed to be breathing the same air as you that I am strongly resiting the urge to hold my breath right now. I firmly wish that you had never been born because the House would be a much better place. It would be a place that I would not be embarrassed and ashamed to live in. You have made this place a living fiery torment and for that I despise you and I find you to be a despicable human being who, if there is any justice in this world, will die young and burn in fire for eternity.” There was a long silence following this speech. Margret, Marc, Allison, Ava, and Lara were staring at Matthew in complete shock at his angry and extraordinarily venomous speech. They would never have thought that Matthew could be so nasty and hateful. Brien had stopped juggling the knives about halfway through Matthew's monologue and they were still quivering in the floor where they had fallen. Finally Brien broke the silence by beginning to laugh. It started just as a smile and then a grin then the grin grew into a snicker and then the the snicker grew into a chuckle and then into a full on belly laugh. The others stared at him like he was mad, and maybe he was.
“Dude!” He said, still laughing, “You are like the worst peace diplomat in the history of mankind!” He double over with laughter and could not talk again for quite a long time, at least three minutes, Everyone, including Matthew, looked totally taken aback by his behavior. They had not expected the great and the fearsome Brien May, a man who was know for his violent outbursts and violence, would react this way to someone telling him he was a waste of air and deserved to die.
“Matthew dear, please allow me to give you a totally unsolicited and wholly undeserved piece of friendly advice.” Brien said, once he had controlled his laughter and thus regained the ability to speak, “When you are trying to reach out to people who you led a rebellion against because you desperately need their help and are in a tight bind that you not say that you either want them to die or think that they never should have been born, it simply isn't good politics.” Brien laughed again and walked toward Matthew. Matthew looked nervous and began to back away hurriedly. Margret and Marc exchanged worried glances and stepped in front of Brien. Brien looked at the two of them blocking his path and laughed. Marc and Margret looked at each other, very unnerved. Margret glanced over at Allison who shrugged in a 'Don't ask me what the heck Brien is doing, I have no idea, I just work with him.' Brien continued to laugh and, after about a minute or so of uncontrollable laughter he began to talk in a very calm, collected, and reasonable tone of voice,
“Guys be logical about this.” He said as he put his hands on Marc and Margret's shoulders, they looked disgusted and promptly shrugged Brien's arms off their shoulders. Brien smiled and raised his hands in the air. “I don't want to hurt anybody and I've never wanted to hurt anybody...”
“Except for those people who you killed.” Matthew pointed out walking towards Brien, “You did want to hurt them, didn't you?”
“My hand was forced.” Brien countered, “I had to kill them, I had no choice.”
“But you did!” Matthew began but he was interrupted by Marc.
“Lord Almighty!” Marc yelled, “Can we please just cut all the pointless freaking drama?! Matt, we were at war so yeah Brien did some things that might not be the things that might not be totally on the moral high ground, but it is a freaking war! So will the two of you please get over your insane need for everything to be black or white?! War is almost never black or white, it is almost always gray, and this war is no exception! So let's not engage in he said she said, he killed she killed. Both sides did things that they shouldn't be proud of and let's just leave it to historians to figure out who was in the right and who was in the wrong and let's go and take this Master Computer out!” Marc stopped speaking and looked around, breathing heavily. Suddenly, Margret and Allison began to applaud and cheer.
“What the Heck?!” Marc said looking at them with his eyebrows raised, “What was that all about?”
“I don't know!” Margret said, “It just felt like we should cheer and head out to go fight the evil enemy or something, I don't know!”
“You people are really weird.” Brien said raising his eyebrows.
Brien loaded his Zeta 1457 Assault rifle and cocked it. It was a beautiful firearm and Brien had kept it in very good repair. He polished it every three days for at least half an hour and he cleaned all the parts of the gun every Sunday for about an hour. The gun had been made for Brien specifically. In fact the gun was based on a design that Brien had created. It was very light but contained twice as many bullets as most assault rifles. It also was extraordinarily sturdy. Unlike most assault rifles the strap was locked into the gun secured by fourteen different clasps and straps so it was nearly impossible for the gun to fall off during the middle of a battle.
Brien slung the rifle over his shoulder and drew his Beta nine pistol. Unlike the rifle to handgun was not in pristine condition. It was bumped and scratched. The pistol was also quite old, it had been built for Christopher August, one of the first Head Foreman. The gun was used by Christopher August back when he was just a regular Foreman to put down the Anarchy Riots. After the Anarchy Riots ended he was named Head Foreman and proceed to make the position much more important and influential. The position remained powerful until Christopher's death. The gun was then placed in The House History Museum and the Teachers started to chisel away at the Foremen's power. This continued until Brien became Head Foreman. This first thing that he did after assuming the position was to get Christopher's gun out of the museum. He had always looked up to Christopher and was deeply deeply honored to use his gun.
The pistol was from a different time and it was built very differently. Modern handguns were small, compact, and light, The Beta nine, on the other hand, was a hefty gun that was extremely powerful. If someone shot you with that gun you were going down. Brien had once shot a man in the shoulder during a stand off with the pistol and the bullet had passed man's shoulder, shattering the bone into hundreds of little pieces, and hit the man standing behind him.
The barrel of the Beta nine was very long and thick, The handle was stocky and it had a name plate screwed on to the right hand side of it when you are holding it as if to shoot. The name plate hung vertically and read “Insurance Owner: Christopher August Make: Beta Model: Nine Year of Manufacture: 2100 I Make Order.” On the left hand side of the handle was another name plate that also hung vertically and read “Brien May Make: beta Model: nine Year of Possession: 2245 Order Makes Me.”
Brien loaded the gun and placed it back in his belt holster. He sighed and looked around at his companions. Matthew, Marc, Ava, Lara and Allison were still loading their guns but Margret was also already done.
“You ready?” She asked as she tossed him a leather jacket that doubled as a bulletproof vest.
“Not really.” He said pulling it on, “What about you?”
“I have to admit that I have in fact been more ready.” Marget said as she tossed Brien three closed switch blades. Brien laughed and caught the knives. He flicked the knives open and began to juggle them. Margret, Marc, and Allison laughed and began to applaud. Lara looked a little concerned and Matthew grimaced and shook his head, obviously greatly annoyed.
“Careful Brien,'' he said acidly, “You don't want to drop any of them, you could cut and hurt yourself quite badly.”
“Why Matt,” Brien said, smiling and continuing to juggle the knives, “I am getting the impression that you don't really like me all that much, I can't imagine that is the case but.....” He trailed off and stared at Matthew with his eyebrows raised. Matthew didn't back down an inch.
“It is the case.” Matthew said, smiling a sickly sweet smile, “I honestly, truly, and completely don't like you all that much. In fact as soon as we are finished with this mission I am going to leave the House and I hope and I have prayed to every single higher being that has ever been worshiped by any member of the human race who's name I could remember that I will never have the misfortune of meeting you again. I also hope, and I also have prayed, that you will die a extraordinarily painful death and I hope that you die it as soon as possible. You are a sorry excuse for a human being and an extraordinary waster of oxygen. In fact I am so embarrassed and ashamed to be breathing the same air as you that I am strongly resiting the urge to hold my breath right now. I firmly wish that you had never been born because the House would be a much better place. It would be a place that I would not be embarrassed and ashamed to live in. You have made this place a living fiery torment and for that I despise you and I find you to be a despicable human being who, if there is any justice in this world, will die young and burn in fire for eternity.” There was a long silence following this speech. Margret, Marc, Allison, Ava, and Lara were staring at Matthew in complete shock at his angry and extraordinarily venomous speech. They would never have thought that Matthew could be so nasty and hateful. Brien had stopped juggling the knives about halfway through Matthew's monologue and they were still quivering in the floor where they had fallen. Finally Brien broke the silence by beginning to laugh. It started just as a smile and then a grin then the grin grew into a snicker and then the the snicker grew into a chuckle and then into a full on belly laugh. The others stared at him like he was mad, and maybe he was.
“Dude!” He said, still laughing, “You are like the worst peace diplomat in the history of mankind!” He double over with laughter and could not talk again for quite a long time, at least three minutes, Everyone, including Matthew, looked totally taken aback by his behavior. They had not expected the great and the fearsome Brien May, a man who was know for his violent outbursts and violence, would react this way to someone telling him he was a waste of air and deserved to die.
“Matthew dear, please allow me to give you a totally unsolicited and wholly undeserved piece of friendly advice.” Brien said, once he had controlled his laughter and thus regained the ability to speak, “When you are trying to reach out to people who you led a rebellion against because you desperately need their help and are in a tight bind that you not say that you either want them to die or think that they never should have been born, it simply isn't good politics.” Brien laughed again and walked toward Matthew. Matthew looked nervous and began to back away hurriedly. Margret and Marc exchanged worried glances and stepped in front of Brien. Brien looked at the two of them blocking his path and laughed. Marc and Margret looked at each other, very unnerved. Margret glanced over at Allison who shrugged in a 'Don't ask me what the heck Brien is doing, I have no idea, I just work with him.' Brien continued to laugh and, after about a minute or so of uncontrollable laughter he began to talk in a very calm, collected, and reasonable tone of voice,
“Guys be logical about this.” He said as he put his hands on Marc and Margret's shoulders, they looked disgusted and promptly shrugged Brien's arms off their shoulders. Brien smiled and raised his hands in the air. “I don't want to hurt anybody and I've never wanted to hurt anybody...”
“Except for those people who you killed.” Matthew pointed out walking towards Brien, “You did want to hurt them, didn't you?”
“My hand was forced.” Brien countered, “I had to kill them, I had no choice.”
“But you did!” Matthew began but he was interrupted by Marc.
“Lord Almighty!” Marc yelled, “Can we please just cut all the pointless freaking drama?! Matt, we were at war so yeah Brien did some things that might not be the things that might not be totally on the moral high ground, but it is a freaking war! So will the two of you please get over your insane need for everything to be black or white?! War is almost never black or white, it is almost always gray, and this war is no exception! So let's not engage in he said she said, he killed she killed. Both sides did things that they shouldn't be proud of and let's just leave it to historians to figure out who was in the right and who was in the wrong and let's go and take this Master Computer out!” Marc stopped speaking and looked around, breathing heavily. Suddenly, Margret and Allison began to applaud and cheer.
“What the Heck?!” Marc said looking at them with his eyebrows raised, “What was that all about?”
“I don't know!” Margret said, “It just felt like we should cheer and head out to go fight the evil enemy or something, I don't know!”
“You people are really weird.” Brien said raising his eyebrows.
The House Part 31
Part Seven
The assault on the Master Computer
Chapter One in which The Master Computer explains things to his minion
“So,” The voice was cultured, clear, and strong. It was a voice of authority. It was a voice that never needed to yell or make threats. It was a voice that was always polite and well spoked.
“They want to destroy me.” The voice continued, “I certainly did not expect that. And in many ways it is a brilliant plan.” The voice did not sound angry but rather respectful, as if it was playing a complicated game of strategy and its opponent had just made a totally unexpected move and it had made the challenge greater, “And they are certainly the people to try it, if anyone is to try.”
“It's far more dangerous than that Sir,” Lloyd February said, obviously angry at the audacity of these people. Who the heck did they think they were? “This could set the plan back for months if not years! I can kill them now if you will just give me the password.”
The voice laughed a superior laugh which made it totally clear that the voice was not laughing with Lloyd but at him.
“Master,” Lloyd said, trying very hard to control his temper, “I can end this now if you will give me the password.”
“Lloyd,” The voice said patiently, “You have been a good Lieutenant to me and I know that you could end this now if I gave you the password but I neither want this to be ended now or you to have the master password.”
“Why don't you want this ended?” Lloyd asked, outraged.
“Because I want to see how they're going to do it, I've been growing bored with things for a few years and this war has been the most interesting thing that has happened in ages and I want to see it through to the end.”
“Has it occurred to you,” Lloyd said through gritted teeth, trying very very hard to be polite, “that they could destroy you?”
“Yes,” The voice replied, “Yes it has occurred to me..”
“Then why in blazes are you letting them proceed?!” Lloyd demanded.
“Because,” The voice explained calmly, “Like in any game it is simply no fun to be the winner by a mile. It is much more fun to snatch victory from defeat, to win by a nose if you will.”
Lloyd did not look convinced so the Voice continued.
“Think about, Lloyd, you like to watch dueling, isn't that correct?”
“Yeah,” Lloyd said gruffly, he was still annoyed, “I like dueling.”
“And,” The voice continued, “wasn't there a duelist a few years ago by the name of Jeremiah January?”
“Pretty Boy Jeremy, yeah.” Lloyd sneered.
“And was he a good duelist?” The voice asked with a slight hint of humor.
“He was alright.” Lloyd shrugged, “He wasn't as good as everyone thought he was though, they all thought he was the second coming or something. I saw him duel once in the House Cup and he wasn't that good at all, all frills and swoops and not much skill.”
“No this duelist was defeated in the House Cup, wasn't he?” The voice asked.
“He was.” Lloyd grinned nastily, “He finally came up against someone who could wasn't scared of him and actually tried to duel.”
“Correct me if I am wrong,” the Voice said, “But I believe that you saw that match live.”
“I did.” Lloyd said, still grinning that nasty grin, “I watched Pretty Boy Jeremy taken down by this young kid who nobody had heard who fought with skill and style, his name was Franklin July.”
“You seem to really dislike this Jeremiah January.” The Voice said silkily
“Dislike nothing,” Lloyd spat, “I hate that sorry excuse for a duelist!”
“Hate is a strong word,” The voice said, “Why do you hate this man?”
“Because he always won!” Lloyd replied, throwing his hands up, “There was no sport to it anymore, there was no competition to his matches, it was just the Pretty Boy Jeremy January show.”
“That is my point,” The voice said triumphantly, “I have been in power for so long there is no sport to it anymore, I look forward to matching wits with these brave and intelligent young people who believe that they can take me down, I very much look forward to it.”
The assault on the Master Computer
Chapter One in which The Master Computer explains things to his minion
“So,” The voice was cultured, clear, and strong. It was a voice of authority. It was a voice that never needed to yell or make threats. It was a voice that was always polite and well spoked.
“They want to destroy me.” The voice continued, “I certainly did not expect that. And in many ways it is a brilliant plan.” The voice did not sound angry but rather respectful, as if it was playing a complicated game of strategy and its opponent had just made a totally unexpected move and it had made the challenge greater, “And they are certainly the people to try it, if anyone is to try.”
“It's far more dangerous than that Sir,” Lloyd February said, obviously angry at the audacity of these people. Who the heck did they think they were? “This could set the plan back for months if not years! I can kill them now if you will just give me the password.”
The voice laughed a superior laugh which made it totally clear that the voice was not laughing with Lloyd but at him.
“Master,” Lloyd said, trying very hard to control his temper, “I can end this now if you will give me the password.”
“Lloyd,” The voice said patiently, “You have been a good Lieutenant to me and I know that you could end this now if I gave you the password but I neither want this to be ended now or you to have the master password.”
“Why don't you want this ended?” Lloyd asked, outraged.
“Because I want to see how they're going to do it, I've been growing bored with things for a few years and this war has been the most interesting thing that has happened in ages and I want to see it through to the end.”
“Has it occurred to you,” Lloyd said through gritted teeth, trying very very hard to be polite, “that they could destroy you?”
“Yes,” The voice replied, “Yes it has occurred to me..”
“Then why in blazes are you letting them proceed?!” Lloyd demanded.
“Because,” The voice explained calmly, “Like in any game it is simply no fun to be the winner by a mile. It is much more fun to snatch victory from defeat, to win by a nose if you will.”
Lloyd did not look convinced so the Voice continued.
“Think about, Lloyd, you like to watch dueling, isn't that correct?”
“Yeah,” Lloyd said gruffly, he was still annoyed, “I like dueling.”
“And,” The voice continued, “wasn't there a duelist a few years ago by the name of Jeremiah January?”
“Pretty Boy Jeremy, yeah.” Lloyd sneered.
“And was he a good duelist?” The voice asked with a slight hint of humor.
“He was alright.” Lloyd shrugged, “He wasn't as good as everyone thought he was though, they all thought he was the second coming or something. I saw him duel once in the House Cup and he wasn't that good at all, all frills and swoops and not much skill.”
“No this duelist was defeated in the House Cup, wasn't he?” The voice asked.
“He was.” Lloyd grinned nastily, “He finally came up against someone who could wasn't scared of him and actually tried to duel.”
“Correct me if I am wrong,” the Voice said, “But I believe that you saw that match live.”
“I did.” Lloyd said, still grinning that nasty grin, “I watched Pretty Boy Jeremy taken down by this young kid who nobody had heard who fought with skill and style, his name was Franklin July.”
“You seem to really dislike this Jeremiah January.” The Voice said silkily
“Dislike nothing,” Lloyd spat, “I hate that sorry excuse for a duelist!”
“Hate is a strong word,” The voice said, “Why do you hate this man?”
“Because he always won!” Lloyd replied, throwing his hands up, “There was no sport to it anymore, there was no competition to his matches, it was just the Pretty Boy Jeremy January show.”
“That is my point,” The voice said triumphantly, “I have been in power for so long there is no sport to it anymore, I look forward to matching wits with these brave and intelligent young people who believe that they can take me down, I very much look forward to it.”
The House Part 30
Chapter Four in which two old friends and one old enemy have a phone conversation.
“Hello, who is this? Is something wrong?! Have the rebels taken over anything important or killed anyone important?!”
“Allison, chill out, it's me.”
“And who the heck is 'me'?”
“Margret.”
“Margret what?”
“Margret what?! Margret Fitzgerald. Lord Allison, you know who I am.”
“Oh My God. Margret, why in the name of all that is holy in this universe or any other are you calling me?! You could get us both arrested for treasonous contact with the enemy! Unless....Oh My God....are you calling to surrender? Is this the end of the war? Oh My God!”
“Allison for God's sake! Calm the Heck Down! I am not surrendering, the war is not over, and this is not treason. I merely have a proposal for you.”
“I am not going to spy for you, so before you go any further....”
“I don't want you to spy for me!”
“Do you want to spy for me?”
“No!”
“Then what is this about?”
“I need to ask you a question before I answer that.”
“I will not reveal classified information.”
“I don't want you to! Lord, Allison!”
“Ok fine, ask me your question.”
“How close are you and Brien?”
“That is a peculiar question.”
“Just answer it, please.”
“Well, we're not having an affair if that's what you're asking.”
“It totally, totally wasn't.”
“Ok, then, um, basically we have a good working relationship. I let him make all the important decisions and he lets me make the announcements however I want. Now what is this all about?”
“I have a quick follow up question first.”
“Ok fine, what is it?”
“If you went to Brien with an idea what he take it seriously?”
“I don't know, maybe, I don't really know anymore, why do you want to know? What idea do you want me to bring to him? Seriously Margret, what the heck is going on?”
“Ok, Allison, you know about the Master Computer and everything, right?”
“Yeah Ben filled me in after I became Clerk. Why?”
“Well, I've been thinking about it and I think that there is only one way that this war will ever totally end.”
“It won't end when one side surrenders?”
“No.”
“And why the heck not?”
“Because....ummmmm hold on I'm trying to think of a way to explain it.....ok let's say that your side surrenders...”
“Let's not.”
“Ok, fine, whatever, let's say that my side surrenders...”
“Which is how it's going to be.”
“Allison! Will you please be quiet and let me talk?! Lord!”
“No need to get all bent out of shape.”
“Allison!”
“Ok, ok, I'll shut the heck up.”
“Thank you. No where was I?”
“Your side was surrendering.”
“Allison!”
“I was trying to help!”
“Shut up!”
“Ok, fine....don't know why you ask a question if you don't want an answer....”
“Anyway...as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...say my side surrenders..”
“Woo hoo, victory, yes! We are the champions, we are the champions of the world...”
“Lord Allison! I am like this close to hanging up the phone.”
“Sorry couldn't resist.”
“Well start trying to resit!!”
“Ok, ok, don't need to bite my head off.”
“Allison seriously I need you to shut up.”
“Fine.”
“Ok so if my side loses then the leaders might lay down their arms but there will always be people below the surface who are still fighting same thing if your side loses. The only way for there to be true peace if to open the doors to the outside and let those who want to to leave the House. And the only way to open the doors is to take out the Master Computer. And I was hoping that you and Brien would help us to take it out. Us being me, Matt, Lara January, Marc July, and Ava, um, Lord! I can't remember her last name! Sorry. But yeah it would be a small group that could go under the radar.”
“May I talk now?”
“Yeah, totally, what do you think?”
“Well I'm all for it, and I called Brien into my room to listen in while you were talking a while back and he thinks that it's a great.”
“Genius darling, pure genius! Seriously though it is a good idea as long as we get to control the House and you guys leave for outside.”
“Sure, that's fine, we just want to end the bloodshed.”
“I have a couple question for you though Margret.”
“Ok sure, totally, what is it, Brien?”
“Well from what I know about the Master Computer, and I know a good chunk, probably more than anyone else living in the House, it has access to everything electronic in the House, is that right?”
“That's right, it controls all electronic systems.”
“And it's really smart and cunning, correct?”
“Yes, it has all of Prof. Lucious' genius.”
“So if there was a civil war going on in the House the Master Computer might want to keep an eye on the leaders of the various factions by using any means that it could, would you agree?”
“I'm sure that it is keeping a pretty close eye on us, yeah.”
“And what, in your opinion, counts as a quote electronic systems unquote?”
“Well, um, let's see....well the lights obviously, the food machines, the computers, um......”
“The phones, maybe?”
“Yeah, the phones are definitely controlled by the Master Computer. It probably records all telephone conversations made by anyone inside the House and then stores them in its memory banks forever.”
“So would you say that, since the Master Computer is certainly keeping tabs on both of us and has the ability to listen into phone conversations, discussing the fact that we are going to try to take it down is probably not the greatest idea in the world?”
“Oh My God.”
“Yeah I didn't think it was a brilliant idea either.”
“Look ok, um, I need to tell you some things about where we shall meet and I don't know how without the Master Computer hearing!”
“Ok how is this: I'll call all of all attacks my end and you do the same on your end then you and whoever you choose to bring with you will go to the top floor for Peace Talks. Then we can handle everything in person from there.”
“Ok we'll be there tomorrow.”
“fantastic. I'll see you then.”
“Bye Margret.”
“Bye Allison.”
End of Part Six
“Hello, who is this? Is something wrong?! Have the rebels taken over anything important or killed anyone important?!”
“Allison, chill out, it's me.”
“And who the heck is 'me'?”
“Margret.”
“Margret what?”
“Margret what?! Margret Fitzgerald. Lord Allison, you know who I am.”
“Oh My God. Margret, why in the name of all that is holy in this universe or any other are you calling me?! You could get us both arrested for treasonous contact with the enemy! Unless....Oh My God....are you calling to surrender? Is this the end of the war? Oh My God!”
“Allison for God's sake! Calm the Heck Down! I am not surrendering, the war is not over, and this is not treason. I merely have a proposal for you.”
“I am not going to spy for you, so before you go any further....”
“I don't want you to spy for me!”
“Do you want to spy for me?”
“No!”
“Then what is this about?”
“I need to ask you a question before I answer that.”
“I will not reveal classified information.”
“I don't want you to! Lord, Allison!”
“Ok fine, ask me your question.”
“How close are you and Brien?”
“That is a peculiar question.”
“Just answer it, please.”
“Well, we're not having an affair if that's what you're asking.”
“It totally, totally wasn't.”
“Ok, then, um, basically we have a good working relationship. I let him make all the important decisions and he lets me make the announcements however I want. Now what is this all about?”
“I have a quick follow up question first.”
“Ok fine, what is it?”
“If you went to Brien with an idea what he take it seriously?”
“I don't know, maybe, I don't really know anymore, why do you want to know? What idea do you want me to bring to him? Seriously Margret, what the heck is going on?”
“Ok, Allison, you know about the Master Computer and everything, right?”
“Yeah Ben filled me in after I became Clerk. Why?”
“Well, I've been thinking about it and I think that there is only one way that this war will ever totally end.”
“It won't end when one side surrenders?”
“No.”
“And why the heck not?”
“Because....ummmmm hold on I'm trying to think of a way to explain it.....ok let's say that your side surrenders...”
“Let's not.”
“Ok, fine, whatever, let's say that my side surrenders...”
“Which is how it's going to be.”
“Allison! Will you please be quiet and let me talk?! Lord!”
“No need to get all bent out of shape.”
“Allison!”
“Ok, ok, I'll shut the heck up.”
“Thank you. No where was I?”
“Your side was surrendering.”
“Allison!”
“I was trying to help!”
“Shut up!”
“Ok, fine....don't know why you ask a question if you don't want an answer....”
“Anyway...as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...say my side surrenders..”
“Woo hoo, victory, yes! We are the champions, we are the champions of the world...”
“Lord Allison! I am like this close to hanging up the phone.”
“Sorry couldn't resist.”
“Well start trying to resit!!”
“Ok, ok, don't need to bite my head off.”
“Allison seriously I need you to shut up.”
“Fine.”
“Ok so if my side loses then the leaders might lay down their arms but there will always be people below the surface who are still fighting same thing if your side loses. The only way for there to be true peace if to open the doors to the outside and let those who want to to leave the House. And the only way to open the doors is to take out the Master Computer. And I was hoping that you and Brien would help us to take it out. Us being me, Matt, Lara January, Marc July, and Ava, um, Lord! I can't remember her last name! Sorry. But yeah it would be a small group that could go under the radar.”
“May I talk now?”
“Yeah, totally, what do you think?”
“Well I'm all for it, and I called Brien into my room to listen in while you were talking a while back and he thinks that it's a great.”
“Genius darling, pure genius! Seriously though it is a good idea as long as we get to control the House and you guys leave for outside.”
“Sure, that's fine, we just want to end the bloodshed.”
“I have a couple question for you though Margret.”
“Ok sure, totally, what is it, Brien?”
“Well from what I know about the Master Computer, and I know a good chunk, probably more than anyone else living in the House, it has access to everything electronic in the House, is that right?”
“That's right, it controls all electronic systems.”
“And it's really smart and cunning, correct?”
“Yes, it has all of Prof. Lucious' genius.”
“So if there was a civil war going on in the House the Master Computer might want to keep an eye on the leaders of the various factions by using any means that it could, would you agree?”
“I'm sure that it is keeping a pretty close eye on us, yeah.”
“And what, in your opinion, counts as a quote electronic systems unquote?”
“Well, um, let's see....well the lights obviously, the food machines, the computers, um......”
“The phones, maybe?”
“Yeah, the phones are definitely controlled by the Master Computer. It probably records all telephone conversations made by anyone inside the House and then stores them in its memory banks forever.”
“So would you say that, since the Master Computer is certainly keeping tabs on both of us and has the ability to listen into phone conversations, discussing the fact that we are going to try to take it down is probably not the greatest idea in the world?”
“Oh My God.”
“Yeah I didn't think it was a brilliant idea either.”
“Look ok, um, I need to tell you some things about where we shall meet and I don't know how without the Master Computer hearing!”
“Ok how is this: I'll call all of all attacks my end and you do the same on your end then you and whoever you choose to bring with you will go to the top floor for Peace Talks. Then we can handle everything in person from there.”
“Ok we'll be there tomorrow.”
“fantastic. I'll see you then.”
“Bye Margret.”
“Bye Allison.”
End of Part Six
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The House Part 29
Chapter Three in which Margret corrects Matthew on a few points and proposes an idea that Matthew does not like at all
Margret was slowly becoming addicted to Chai tea. Now when one is listing things to which one can become addicted to Chai tea is probably not in the top ten or even top 100. In fact it probably would not be on many people's lists. But the definition of addiction is when you think you can't survive without something and Margret certainly did not think that she could get through her day without her thrice daily Chai fix.
Margret was drinking Chai when Matthew burst into her room looking much the worse for ware.
“I figured it out!” He shouted, grinning hugely, “I figured it out Margret, I figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” Margret said, taking a long soothing drink of her tea. Allison and Margret had always used to argue over how to make tea. Allison insisted that you put the water in first and then the milk and sugar. Margret said that that was crazy talk and everyone knew that you put the milk in first and then the water and sugar. They would go at it for a good half an hour until Madeline would yell at them that it was just tea for God's sake and could they please shut the heck up about it before she had to kill them with their tea bags? Margret and Allison would then engage in an animated discussion about how you could kill someone with a tea bag until Madeline chucked a piece of fruit at their heads.
“The secret!” Matthew said, still very excited, “Or rather secrets! But I now know how to end the war! We just tell everyone that The Master Computer is manipulating us into a huge world war and then we destroy it! It's so simple!”
“Yeah,” Margret said laughing, “That's not going to work.”
“What?” Matthew said, totally flabbergasted, “Why the heck not? You told me that the secret would end the war! And by the way Margret, Aliens seriously? That is really awesome.”
“Yeah Aliens.” Marget said laughing, “But I think you might be a bit confused. What do you think that the big secret is?”
“That the Master Computer, which is also totally awesome by the way, I mean dude, We have a crazed megalomaniac super computer plotting World Domination in our basement, um...Ladies and Gentlemen can we say Skynet or HAL 2000?”
“Who?” Margret asked as she took another sip of her tea.
“Skynet and HAL 2000.” Matthew repeated.
“I have literally no idea who those people are.” Margret said.
“Seriously?” Matthew said, shocked, “2001 a Space Odyssey? Terminator? Two of the Most Famous Science Fiction films of all time...”
“Never heard of them.”
“Lord Almighty! Have you heard of Star Wars?”
“Nope.”
“Back to the Future?”
“No. but that's a funny title.”
“Inception?”
“No.”
“Star Trek?”
“Not as such.”
“Babylon five?”
“Nope.”
“The Matrix?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Alien?”
“Matthew, can we please get back to the matter at hand?”
“This is the freaking matter at hand! Have you seen Avatar?”
“No! For God's sake Matt can we...”
“Blade Runner?”
“No!”
“Titanic?”
“No!”
“The Sting?”
“Yes, yes I did see that one. Best Science Fiction film I've ever seen. Can we move on now?”
“Liar!” Matthew said triumphantly, “As awesome as it is, the Sting is not a Science Fiction film! You don't even know the difference between a sci-fi film classic and a heist movie classic! Ok that settles it; I'm lending you a copy of The Collected Science Fiction Movie Classics.”
“Fantastic.” Margret said rolling her eyes, “Now I'll be able to say 'Beam Me Up Scotty' as the Foremen shoot me!”
“Actually that line was never said in the original series.”
“I DON'T CARE!!”
“Ok, ok.” Matthew said, holding up his hands in a 'Hey back the heck off' gesture, “What I found out was built because the Founders were a bunch of wimps and they were afraid that aliens were going to take over the world.”
“Yeah.” Margret said nodding as she got up to refill her tea cup, “Do you want any tea Matthew?”
“What kind is it?” Matthew asked, a little warily. He had been asked that question before and had said that yes he did want some tea and had received a cup of something called Irish Breakfast tea which tasted like some had emptied half the milk carton into it. So now he was careful.
“Chai.” Margret said, “I quite like it.”
“Okay.” Matthew said, “I'll try a cup, thanks Margret.”
“No problem” Margret said, handing him a cup of piping hot tea, “Now continue with your story. What else did you find out?”
“Well so after the Founders shut themselves up the President of the United States somehow got into the House and told the people on the High Council that actually the aliens were friendly and they should all come back out into the world. But one of the leader guys, who was apparently kind of nuts, couldn't handle being wrong so he made himself into the Master Computer but then he got stabbed by this other leader person and he died. But as he was dying this protester through a bomb that made the guy's brain go into the Master Computer or something and then the Master Computer took over everything and began to make laws and stuff like that. Then it went ever crazier and it started to plan world domination and it started messing around with the genes in all the babies. So all we have to do is tell everyone what the Master Computer is up to and then we can start fighting it instead.”
“Yeah that won't work.” Margret said.
“Why the heck not?” Matthew asked, disappointed.
“Let me ask you this,” Margret said, putting down her tea cup. “If I had told you that the reason the House exists is because the Founders were scared of an alien invasion and currently we are being run by a supercomputer bent on world domination would you have believed me?”
“Valid point.” Matthew admitted as he took a sip of his tea. It was surprisingly good, more flavorful than regular tea. “So what is your suggestion?”
“The only way to end this war.” Margret said, “is to open the doors to the outside. And the only way to open the doors is to destroy the Master Computer.”
“We get to destroy the Master Computer?” Matthew asked grinning, “That is so freaking awesome!”
“You are such a geek!” Marget said laughing, “But I'm going to propose an idea that you won't like very much.”
“Ok,” Matthew said, nervously, “What is it?”
“I think, actually I know, that two people will never be able to take out the Master Computer.” Margret said.
“Yeah.” Matthew said, nodding along.
“That means that we have to bring more people in to the secret.” Margret continued.
“That's logical.” Matthew agreed, “Marc would be good and maybe Ava. Lara too, we could need some medical attention”
“Matthew,” Margret said, “We need the best if we're going to do this so, and I know you're going to hate this.......but I think we should contact Brien May and Allison October.”
Matthew burst out laughing.
“Dude,” he said, still laughing, “That was fantastic! The buildup and then the pay off! I applaud you with vigor! That was hilarious!”
“Matt,” Margret said, smiling thinly.
“Yeah?” Matthew replied, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
“I wasn't joking.”
“What?”
“I seriously think that we should ask Brien May and Allison October to help us take out the Master Computer.”
“Are you serious?” Matthew asked, dumbfounded.
“Totally.” Margret said stonily.
“Then I think that maybe you need to up the number of sessions that you have with Lara because that is crazy talk!” Matthew said, jumping out of his chair and beginning to pace. “Brien May killed Tom! Lord, Brien May killed the High Council! He's a madman! He is a homicidal freaking maniac!”
“But he is also a very skilled fighter and, I'm pretty sure you don't know this about him, a very liberal political thinker.” Margret pointed out, “He is an idealist forced into a realist's clothing. I think that he would be willing to put aside his feelings about us and the revolution to take down The Master Computer.”
“Those are good points,” Matthew said, “Might I counter by saying that Brien is a homicidal maniac!!”
“He's not.” Margret replied.
“He killed Tom, he killed the High Council,” Matthew said, “both for no real reason. I don't know about you, but where I come from we call that type of person a homicidal maniac!”
“We don't actually know that he killed any of those people.” Margret said reasonably, “And if he did he was probably just crazy from grief. He and Ben were very close friends.”
“Seriously?” Matthew asked. He would not have thought that a calm, kind, and reasonable guy like Ben September would be friends with a mean, nuts, and extreme guy like Brien May.
“Yep.” Margret confirmed, nodding her head up and down causing strands of her hair to start to escape its hair tie. She sighed and pulled the ties out of her hair. It fell down almost to her shoulders. “They've been really close friends for years. In fact, they were roommates for a long time.”
“Really.” Matthew said, laughing a little to himself, “I would never had suspected that of either Brien or Ben. As a matter of fact I wouldn't have thought that Brien had any friends.”
“He was really close with Brien.” Margret said, “And he was also friendly with the old President of the House, before Emily February, what was her name?”
“Lynda August?” Matthew suggested.
“No, remember she only served like a month and a half.” Margret said shaking her head. “It was the person who was before her who served for years and then retired. She died about a year ago.”
“Oh,” Matthew said snapping his fingers, “You mean Susan March.”
“That who it was!” Margret said pointing at Matthew, “Thank you Matt.”
“No problem.” Matthew said, “It's just your old age getting to you.”
“Yeah,” Margret said, “Because I'm what? Like Ten Months older than you?”
“Yep.” Matthew said, laughing.
“Anyway,” Margret said shooting Matthew a dirty look. “As I was saying, Brien was friends with her up until her death. He was actually very annoyed when Emily February got the job. He was fine with Lynda being President because she had been on the council for like fifty years, I'm not even kidding, and he thought that she had earned the job. But then after she died he thought that, since he was Chief Legal Consul and doing a really good job plus the fact that he was so close to Natalia that he should get the presidency. But somehow Emily February beat him out. He knew that he couldn't work with her as Chief Legal Consul so he resigned about a month after losing the presidency and started working with the Foremen leadership along with Ben who had been working with the leadership for years. By all accounts he totally re-energized them and made them a force to be reckoned with. When Christian October retired every knew it was either going to be Brien or Ben who got the job and Ben stepped aside and told everyone to vote for Brien. That's how he got the job.”
“I used to wonder.” Matthew said.
“Well now you know.” Margret said, “Emily February had replaced Brien with Nyssa March, one of her really close friends, and immediately she and Brien didn't get along. They disagreed about everything. Just as Brien and Ben were political partners as well as friends so were Nyssa and Emily. In Brien and Ben, Ben was the diplomatic one and Brien was the one with the fire. In Nyssa and Emily, Emily was the strong leader who rose above politics and Nyssa was the one who worked behind the scenes and wasn't afraid to fight dirty. Brien resented her for having the job that he loved so much and Nyssa saw Brien as a major political threat. It is actually because of Nyssa that everyone thought and still thinks that Brien is a crazy gun toting megalomaniac, she was a master of spin.”
“Hold on just one second.” Matthew said holding up his hands, “How the heck do you know all this? You were only a 16 for about a year! How do you know all this gossip and behind closed doors political stuff?”
“I was the youth rep for the council for like three years, remember?” Margret said, “In fact, I was the last one. After I became a 16 and had to resign they didn't replace me.”
“That's right you were.” Matthew said, “Lord, that had totally slipped my mind until just now.”
“Anyway,” Margret said, “Returning to the subject at hand, Brien May and Allison October would be very valuable additions to our little attack force.”
“I still don't like it.” Matthew said, shaking his head, “But if you think that it is really that important that they are with us...”
“I do think that it is important, maybe even vitally important.” Margret jumped in.
“Then I guess you should just ask them.” Matthew sighed, “I'll ask Marc and Lara. Do you think that we should ask Ava?”
“Yes I do.” Marget affirmed “but no one else.”
“Ok.” Matthew sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “Go do whatever it is you're going to do to get them on board and I'll go talk to Marc.”
“Ok,” Margret said, standing up as Matthew did, “I'll talk to you later.”
“Bye.” Matthew said and walked out of the room
Margret sighed, took another drink of her tea and picked up the phone.
Margret was slowly becoming addicted to Chai tea. Now when one is listing things to which one can become addicted to Chai tea is probably not in the top ten or even top 100. In fact it probably would not be on many people's lists. But the definition of addiction is when you think you can't survive without something and Margret certainly did not think that she could get through her day without her thrice daily Chai fix.
Margret was drinking Chai when Matthew burst into her room looking much the worse for ware.
“I figured it out!” He shouted, grinning hugely, “I figured it out Margret, I figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” Margret said, taking a long soothing drink of her tea. Allison and Margret had always used to argue over how to make tea. Allison insisted that you put the water in first and then the milk and sugar. Margret said that that was crazy talk and everyone knew that you put the milk in first and then the water and sugar. They would go at it for a good half an hour until Madeline would yell at them that it was just tea for God's sake and could they please shut the heck up about it before she had to kill them with their tea bags? Margret and Allison would then engage in an animated discussion about how you could kill someone with a tea bag until Madeline chucked a piece of fruit at their heads.
“The secret!” Matthew said, still very excited, “Or rather secrets! But I now know how to end the war! We just tell everyone that The Master Computer is manipulating us into a huge world war and then we destroy it! It's so simple!”
“Yeah,” Margret said laughing, “That's not going to work.”
“What?” Matthew said, totally flabbergasted, “Why the heck not? You told me that the secret would end the war! And by the way Margret, Aliens seriously? That is really awesome.”
“Yeah Aliens.” Marget said laughing, “But I think you might be a bit confused. What do you think that the big secret is?”
“That the Master Computer, which is also totally awesome by the way, I mean dude, We have a crazed megalomaniac super computer plotting World Domination in our basement, um...Ladies and Gentlemen can we say Skynet or HAL 2000?”
“Who?” Margret asked as she took another sip of her tea.
“Skynet and HAL 2000.” Matthew repeated.
“I have literally no idea who those people are.” Margret said.
“Seriously?” Matthew said, shocked, “2001 a Space Odyssey? Terminator? Two of the Most Famous Science Fiction films of all time...”
“Never heard of them.”
“Lord Almighty! Have you heard of Star Wars?”
“Nope.”
“Back to the Future?”
“No. but that's a funny title.”
“Inception?”
“No.”
“Star Trek?”
“Not as such.”
“Babylon five?”
“Nope.”
“The Matrix?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Alien?”
“Matthew, can we please get back to the matter at hand?”
“This is the freaking matter at hand! Have you seen Avatar?”
“No! For God's sake Matt can we...”
“Blade Runner?”
“No!”
“Titanic?”
“No!”
“The Sting?”
“Yes, yes I did see that one. Best Science Fiction film I've ever seen. Can we move on now?”
“Liar!” Matthew said triumphantly, “As awesome as it is, the Sting is not a Science Fiction film! You don't even know the difference between a sci-fi film classic and a heist movie classic! Ok that settles it; I'm lending you a copy of The Collected Science Fiction Movie Classics.”
“Fantastic.” Margret said rolling her eyes, “Now I'll be able to say 'Beam Me Up Scotty' as the Foremen shoot me!”
“Actually that line was never said in the original series.”
“I DON'T CARE!!”
“Ok, ok.” Matthew said, holding up his hands in a 'Hey back the heck off' gesture, “What I found out was built because the Founders were a bunch of wimps and they were afraid that aliens were going to take over the world.”
“Yeah.” Margret said nodding as she got up to refill her tea cup, “Do you want any tea Matthew?”
“What kind is it?” Matthew asked, a little warily. He had been asked that question before and had said that yes he did want some tea and had received a cup of something called Irish Breakfast tea which tasted like some had emptied half the milk carton into it. So now he was careful.
“Chai.” Margret said, “I quite like it.”
“Okay.” Matthew said, “I'll try a cup, thanks Margret.”
“No problem” Margret said, handing him a cup of piping hot tea, “Now continue with your story. What else did you find out?”
“Well so after the Founders shut themselves up the President of the United States somehow got into the House and told the people on the High Council that actually the aliens were friendly and they should all come back out into the world. But one of the leader guys, who was apparently kind of nuts, couldn't handle being wrong so he made himself into the Master Computer but then he got stabbed by this other leader person and he died. But as he was dying this protester through a bomb that made the guy's brain go into the Master Computer or something and then the Master Computer took over everything and began to make laws and stuff like that. Then it went ever crazier and it started to plan world domination and it started messing around with the genes in all the babies. So all we have to do is tell everyone what the Master Computer is up to and then we can start fighting it instead.”
“Yeah that won't work.” Margret said.
“Why the heck not?” Matthew asked, disappointed.
“Let me ask you this,” Margret said, putting down her tea cup. “If I had told you that the reason the House exists is because the Founders were scared of an alien invasion and currently we are being run by a supercomputer bent on world domination would you have believed me?”
“Valid point.” Matthew admitted as he took a sip of his tea. It was surprisingly good, more flavorful than regular tea. “So what is your suggestion?”
“The only way to end this war.” Margret said, “is to open the doors to the outside. And the only way to open the doors is to destroy the Master Computer.”
“We get to destroy the Master Computer?” Matthew asked grinning, “That is so freaking awesome!”
“You are such a geek!” Marget said laughing, “But I'm going to propose an idea that you won't like very much.”
“Ok,” Matthew said, nervously, “What is it?”
“I think, actually I know, that two people will never be able to take out the Master Computer.” Margret said.
“Yeah.” Matthew said, nodding along.
“That means that we have to bring more people in to the secret.” Margret continued.
“That's logical.” Matthew agreed, “Marc would be good and maybe Ava. Lara too, we could need some medical attention”
“Matthew,” Margret said, “We need the best if we're going to do this so, and I know you're going to hate this.......but I think we should contact Brien May and Allison October.”
Matthew burst out laughing.
“Dude,” he said, still laughing, “That was fantastic! The buildup and then the pay off! I applaud you with vigor! That was hilarious!”
“Matt,” Margret said, smiling thinly.
“Yeah?” Matthew replied, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
“I wasn't joking.”
“What?”
“I seriously think that we should ask Brien May and Allison October to help us take out the Master Computer.”
“Are you serious?” Matthew asked, dumbfounded.
“Totally.” Margret said stonily.
“Then I think that maybe you need to up the number of sessions that you have with Lara because that is crazy talk!” Matthew said, jumping out of his chair and beginning to pace. “Brien May killed Tom! Lord, Brien May killed the High Council! He's a madman! He is a homicidal freaking maniac!”
“But he is also a very skilled fighter and, I'm pretty sure you don't know this about him, a very liberal political thinker.” Margret pointed out, “He is an idealist forced into a realist's clothing. I think that he would be willing to put aside his feelings about us and the revolution to take down The Master Computer.”
“Those are good points,” Matthew said, “Might I counter by saying that Brien is a homicidal maniac!!”
“He's not.” Margret replied.
“He killed Tom, he killed the High Council,” Matthew said, “both for no real reason. I don't know about you, but where I come from we call that type of person a homicidal maniac!”
“We don't actually know that he killed any of those people.” Margret said reasonably, “And if he did he was probably just crazy from grief. He and Ben were very close friends.”
“Seriously?” Matthew asked. He would not have thought that a calm, kind, and reasonable guy like Ben September would be friends with a mean, nuts, and extreme guy like Brien May.
“Yep.” Margret confirmed, nodding her head up and down causing strands of her hair to start to escape its hair tie. She sighed and pulled the ties out of her hair. It fell down almost to her shoulders. “They've been really close friends for years. In fact, they were roommates for a long time.”
“Really.” Matthew said, laughing a little to himself, “I would never had suspected that of either Brien or Ben. As a matter of fact I wouldn't have thought that Brien had any friends.”
“He was really close with Brien.” Margret said, “And he was also friendly with the old President of the House, before Emily February, what was her name?”
“Lynda August?” Matthew suggested.
“No, remember she only served like a month and a half.” Margret said shaking her head. “It was the person who was before her who served for years and then retired. She died about a year ago.”
“Oh,” Matthew said snapping his fingers, “You mean Susan March.”
“That who it was!” Margret said pointing at Matthew, “Thank you Matt.”
“No problem.” Matthew said, “It's just your old age getting to you.”
“Yeah,” Margret said, “Because I'm what? Like Ten Months older than you?”
“Yep.” Matthew said, laughing.
“Anyway,” Margret said shooting Matthew a dirty look. “As I was saying, Brien was friends with her up until her death. He was actually very annoyed when Emily February got the job. He was fine with Lynda being President because she had been on the council for like fifty years, I'm not even kidding, and he thought that she had earned the job. But then after she died he thought that, since he was Chief Legal Consul and doing a really good job plus the fact that he was so close to Natalia that he should get the presidency. But somehow Emily February beat him out. He knew that he couldn't work with her as Chief Legal Consul so he resigned about a month after losing the presidency and started working with the Foremen leadership along with Ben who had been working with the leadership for years. By all accounts he totally re-energized them and made them a force to be reckoned with. When Christian October retired every knew it was either going to be Brien or Ben who got the job and Ben stepped aside and told everyone to vote for Brien. That's how he got the job.”
“I used to wonder.” Matthew said.
“Well now you know.” Margret said, “Emily February had replaced Brien with Nyssa March, one of her really close friends, and immediately she and Brien didn't get along. They disagreed about everything. Just as Brien and Ben were political partners as well as friends so were Nyssa and Emily. In Brien and Ben, Ben was the diplomatic one and Brien was the one with the fire. In Nyssa and Emily, Emily was the strong leader who rose above politics and Nyssa was the one who worked behind the scenes and wasn't afraid to fight dirty. Brien resented her for having the job that he loved so much and Nyssa saw Brien as a major political threat. It is actually because of Nyssa that everyone thought and still thinks that Brien is a crazy gun toting megalomaniac, she was a master of spin.”
“Hold on just one second.” Matthew said holding up his hands, “How the heck do you know all this? You were only a 16 for about a year! How do you know all this gossip and behind closed doors political stuff?”
“I was the youth rep for the council for like three years, remember?” Margret said, “In fact, I was the last one. After I became a 16 and had to resign they didn't replace me.”
“That's right you were.” Matthew said, “Lord, that had totally slipped my mind until just now.”
“Anyway,” Margret said, “Returning to the subject at hand, Brien May and Allison October would be very valuable additions to our little attack force.”
“I still don't like it.” Matthew said, shaking his head, “But if you think that it is really that important that they are with us...”
“I do think that it is important, maybe even vitally important.” Margret jumped in.
“Then I guess you should just ask them.” Matthew sighed, “I'll ask Marc and Lara. Do you think that we should ask Ava?”
“Yes I do.” Marget affirmed “but no one else.”
“Ok.” Matthew sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “Go do whatever it is you're going to do to get them on board and I'll go talk to Marc.”
“Ok,” Margret said, standing up as Matthew did, “I'll talk to you later.”
“Bye.” Matthew said and walked out of the room
Margret sighed, took another drink of her tea and picked up the phone.
The House part 28
May 16th
Chapter Two in which Matthew finds out the secret
Matthew grimaced and rubbed his brow. How late was it? He glanced over at the clock and had to look at it again. Was it really Five forty five? Lord, he'd been here all night and found basically nothing. But he had one book left and if the answer was in a book it would have to be in that book. It was a thin one, he'd done all the thick ones first hoping that size was directly related to quantity of information. He soon found out that size was in fact directly related to wordiness of writing and had wasted about seventy five hours of his life reading books in which the author was so obsessed with proving that he was intelligent that it appeared that he had memorized the dictionary. Add on to that the author's other fixation, proving that he was a good writer, and the book could have had all the answers to every single one of his questions and he wouldn't have known it.
Matthew had amused himself during all those hours of pointless reading by writing in the margins of the books. In the beginning the notes were things along the lines of 'Could be important.' and 'Look into this George Bragg he seems to have been the only founder not to change his last name, find out why.' then he started to write things along the lines of 'Bladdy bladdy blah.” and 'By all means blather on you egotistical moron.' eventually he started drawing pictures of the author being killed in very gory ways. These doodles probably took up a good deal of time but they managed to keep him at least slightly interested in what the book was saying.
Matthew picked up the last book, cracked it open, and began to read.
"You will probably never read this book.” it began, “Even now as I sit in my flat and type on my laptop I can see, among my many papers, a letter from one of my greatest friends, who I will not name, telling me that the Foremen are already building boxes to put my manuscripts in. But enough about me and my problems.” Matthew silently thanked the author.
“This book,'' the author continued, “was not written by me, or at least not entirely, this book was written by various different 16s and Ex-Members of the High Council. I am neither. I put my name to this book simply because I am an old man who does not have long to live so it does not matter if the Teacher have me arrested or attempt to discredit me in anyway. I hope that my legacy will stand on my numerous works of very dull and long history books. But it seems that I have succumbed to the plague of all historians and begun to talk about myself again. So without further ado, let us proceed.”
“We are all taught in House History class that the House was founded after the Great Unpleasantness, unfortunately that is actually incorrect. The Great Unpleasantness, which I will explain in great detail shortly, did not in fact precede the Founding of the House. Allow me to give you a little bit of a history on the founders.” Matthew grinned, finally a book that got right to the point and told it like it was. In fact, Matthew thought, not only was this guy kind of hilarious but he also was writing about things that nobody else seemed to have written about. Finally Matthew was getting answers to his questions.
“The Founders,” The book continued, “Were a group of important politicians, scientists, authors, businessmen, and professors who were a sort of, to put it mildly, prone to being a little pessimistic. The House was originally conceived by Prof. Harold Lucious, a famed science fiction writer and respected political essayist. He was also a member of The Diamonds, a society of politically and philosophically like minded people at National University which was, at that time, the biggest and most prestigious university in the United States of America. One night in late November in 2018, Prof. Lucious was at a dinner party and he fell into a debate with a member of the Violets, an opposing political society. The Violet, who numerous witnesses say was Thomas Newgate, the future president of the United States, challenged Prof. Lucious's assertion that the Mexico City Crisis, which was currently at it's most danger point, would cause the total destruction of the human race unless different actions were taken.”
“The Mexico City Crisis was rather a minor conflict, historically speaking. It was caused after the United States of American and the European Union, who were the two major powers in the world at that point, supported different sides during the Mexican Civil War. The war came to an end relatively quickly with both sides agreeing on a two state solution. The main problem was the question of Mexico City, should it be given to the Socialist Revolutionaries who's border contained Mexico City as the United States supported or should, as the Capitalists and the European Union proposed, the city be divide in half like Berlin was after World War two. This disagreement culminated in two ambassadors yelling at each other on the floor of the United nations building in Geneva. The Diamonds said that unless the President and her government began to prepare the entire human race would be wiped out. The Diamonds said that this devastation would occur when the European Union and the United States began to fight over Mexico City and then Palestine and Israel would jump in and and then China and Russia, then things would get out of hand very very quickly.”
“Thomas Newgate, a vocal supporter of the President took a very different approach than what Prof. Lucious was used to. Newgate knew that Prof. Lucious would be prepared for questions on how he got from the Mexico City Crisis to global apocalypse and he also knew that Prof. Lucious had worked a very good reason for that jump.”
“So, instead of attacking him on that Thomas Newgate attacked him on the second part of the argument. He asked him that, if the Mexico City Crisis would really lead to this apocalyptic event, then what could the President possibly due to stop it and save the human race?”
“Prof Lucious replied that she could have, should have, attempted to end, through diplomacy, the meaningless power struggle with the European Union and stopped her interference with other country's internal problems. Future President Newgate, who was already beginning to acquire a reputation as a gifted orator and master debated, replied that those were things that she could have done to prevent this supposedly impending apocalypse in the past, but what could she do now to save the human race?”
“Prof Lucious paused for a few minutes and thought. He then replied that the only way to make sure that the Human Race would survive would be too build a huge building that could produce all that it needed internally and seal off enough people inside to ensure that the population would survive. In his later letters Prof Lucious said that he viewed this as a winning argument but, to a man, everyone who was at the dinner party and heard the argument thinks that Thomas Newgate won.”
“A few days later it came out that one of the United States ambassadors to the United Nations, the one who began to yell at the European Union's ambassador was in fact an alcoholic and drug addict who was both drunk and high at the time that he began to yell at the European Union's ambassador. The President of the United States fired the ambassador in question and formally apologized to the European Union. Eventually it was agreed that the capitol would not in fact be shared and the Socialists would keep sole control of it. But the idea of the Isolation Building, as it was call then, was very popular among the Diamonds and, in 2020, they began to build it.”
“The Diamonds grew more and more concerned about the state of world affairs and they worked harder and harder on the Isolation Building. Finally, in December of 2033, it was finished. The Diamonds were split over whether or not they would move right in. Prof. Lucious was strongly in favor of moving in immediately but even though he was extraordinarily well respect among the Diamonds eventually they voted against moving in right away. Prof. Lucious was very upset and threatened to leave the Diamonds but before he could do that, things changed in a big way.”
“By this point in time the Diamonds were on their way out. In the last election, 2032, not only had Thomas Newgate won the Presidency in a huge landslide but the Violets had gained control of both houses of Congress and numerous governorships as well. But on December 23rd 2033 The International Space Exploration Foundation received a message. This message read as follows: 'Greetings Earthlings. We are the Sahlakian. We are from the Alpha Galaxy and we are pleased and delighted to have discovered intelligent life in the Epsilom Galaxy. We are currently en route to visit you and share technology with you. We plan to arrive in what we have deemed to be your most important city New York City in the United States of America. Our Estimate Day of Arrival is March 14th. We humbly ask that you assemble the leaders of your planet's various nations on that day in New York. We hope to share technology and knowledge with you in return for information about your culture. We thank you in advance for your help. Yours Most Sincerity the Sahlakian.' The Diamonds were convinced that these aliens were coming to invade. So, on January 17th 2034 they moved into the House and sealed it off from the outside.”
Matthew tossed down the book and shook his head. No way, he thought laughing a little, The Great Unpleasantness was an alien invasion? That was just too good to be true. But as awesome as an alien invasion was, and it was truly and completely awesome, it didn't really help him end the war. Maybe there were more goodies to come. Matthew picked the book up off the floor and began to read again.
“The greatest irony of this,” The book continued, “was that, like so many of the Diamond conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios, it turned out to be totally wrong. In 2045 a message was sent to the Diamonds from Thomas Newgate who had spent five years trying to find the House's location. No one is sure how he actually got in but somehow he did. He told everyone that aliens had done everything that they said they were going to. They were a peaceful people who had essentially eliminated large scale violence, poverty, and sickness in their culture and they were helping the people of the Earth to eliminate them as well. Thomas Newgate said that the House clearly served no purpose anymore so everyone should just come out and rejoin society. Most of the Founders supported this idea and the High Council voted for it by a pretty large margin despite the fact that Prof. Lucious was strongly opposed to the idea.”
“So the Founders began to make plans as to how to tell the public the shocking news but on the eve of their announcement Prof. Lucious activated a program that he and Prof. Leslie Kildare had hidden in the master computer.”
“Hold on!” Matthew said out loud, “What Master Computer? I didn't know we had a Master Computer!” He was so close to finally finding out the huge secret that Philip had discovered! He read on.
“This program totally sealed all exits to the outside world and transferred total control of the House's vital systems to Prof. Lucious. Prof. Kildare had helped to create the hidden program for cases of House emergency and he was furious that Prof. Lucious had taken power in this way. He hunted Prof. Lucious down, Prof. Lucious had gone into hiding after he activated the program, and confronted him. The confrontation turned violent and Prof. Kildare stabbed Prof. Lucious before Prof. Lucious shot him.”
“Prof. Lucious could not seek medical attention for his knife wound because he would have been arrested so he attempted to treat himself while still hiding from the Foremen. The Foremen eventually tracked him down and, after a Twenty one hour standoff in which twelve Formen were shot by Prof. Lucious. The Formen who captured him immediately took him to the hospital where he received emergency treatment but it was too late. His attempts to treat the wound had caused it to become infected and he would soon die in a hospital room under without ever regaining conciseness after the surgery.”
“Now, logically, this should be the end of the story; Prof. Lucious had tried to prevent everyone from going out by taking control of the Master Computer but then he died and the control of the Master Computer should pass back to the High Council and then they would open the doors and everyone would go out into the world. That would seem logical.”
“But Prof. Lucious' supporters were furious at how the Foremen had hunted down and arrested their hero so they rioted. The riot got more and more violent until they finally stormed the hospital room where the Professor lay dying. Prof. Lucious' opponents counter rioted and they also stormed the hospital room. The two opposing groups fought with each other and with the Foremen as Lucious lay dying and one of his opponents through an acid bomb into the hospital room. It exploded as Prof. Lucious drew his last breath and something very odd took place.”
“The hidden program acted in a very strange way. It did not simply change all the passwords so only Prof. Lucious knew them. In fact it linked the Master Computer directly to Prof. Lucious' brain, essentially making him the Master Computer. To this day nobody has any idea how this program was able to do that. When Prof. Lucious' brain stopped working what should have happened was that the Master Computer returned to simple being just a computer. But something went terribly terribly wrong, maybe it was the acid bomb, maybe it was Prof. Lucious' final revenge, or maybe it was just a flaw in the program, but whatever the cause the Master Computer gained a personality. And it shared both Prof. Lucious' intelligence and his arrogance. It realized that it needed the humans to stay inside the House otherwise it, the Master Computer, served no purpose. So the Master Computer kept the doors closed and gassed both the High Council and Thomas Newgate. The public had not been told why Thomas Newgate was there or why Prof. Lucious was arrested. The Foremen had announced that Prof. Lucious was wanted for a very serious crime but nobody knew what it was. Thus no one had any reason to suspect foul play and they believed that the gassing of the High Council was a tragic accident. When Teachers found a document on the Master Computer called 'New Charter' they believed that it was what the High Council had been working on at the time of their death”
“This charter outlawed romantic relationships, created the 16s, and also eliminated the original Charter. Thus what we believe is the Founding Charter was actually written by the Master Computer. It made romantic relationships illegal, while previously they had not only been allowed but encouraged as a way to increase the population of the House. Nobody is totally sure why the Master Computer decided to do this. Some believe that Prof. Lucious and by extension the Master Computer was a closeted homosexual and he was furious that his sexual orientation was looked down upon by the other Diamonds. Other believe that Prof. Lucious was hurt because of a bad breakup in his past and wanted to prevent anyone else from having to go through anything like that. Others think that Prof. Lucious, who was by all accounts a huge egotist and lost every close friend that he ever had because of his total obsession with himself and disregard of others, was disdainful of romance, seeing it as pointless and a huge time waster. Others do not think that Prof Lucious' thought and beliefs played no role in the new law rather being an attempt by the Master Computer to control the population.”
“As the years progressed The Master Computer tightened it's grip on the House and it began to want more. It thought that, since it was doing such a bang up job running the House, it should run the whole world and it began to prepare. It had the 16s build the underground floors to house a massive computer complex. The Master Computer than resolved to create the perfect battle plan, a flawless battle plan. The Master Computer resolved that it would spend as long as long as it would take but The Master Computer would created the perfect battle plan and then, and then it would conquer the world. It did not even take a decade before the Master Computer made a breakthrough; since The Master Computer was in charge of all the test tube babies it could mess with the genetic patterns of the unborn children. It would make them more violent and more prone to following leaders. It would make them the perfect soldiers. The Master Computer shared all of this information with its foot soldiers, the 16s. They would help create the perfect army and soon they would conquer the world. It was foolproof.”
Oh.” Matthew said dropping the book and starring off into the distance, “My. Freaking. God.” He saw how this would end the war. Both sides needed a common enemy, this Master Computer would be that common enemy. He had to find Margret.
Chapter Two in which Matthew finds out the secret
Matthew grimaced and rubbed his brow. How late was it? He glanced over at the clock and had to look at it again. Was it really Five forty five? Lord, he'd been here all night and found basically nothing. But he had one book left and if the answer was in a book it would have to be in that book. It was a thin one, he'd done all the thick ones first hoping that size was directly related to quantity of information. He soon found out that size was in fact directly related to wordiness of writing and had wasted about seventy five hours of his life reading books in which the author was so obsessed with proving that he was intelligent that it appeared that he had memorized the dictionary. Add on to that the author's other fixation, proving that he was a good writer, and the book could have had all the answers to every single one of his questions and he wouldn't have known it.
Matthew had amused himself during all those hours of pointless reading by writing in the margins of the books. In the beginning the notes were things along the lines of 'Could be important.' and 'Look into this George Bragg he seems to have been the only founder not to change his last name, find out why.' then he started to write things along the lines of 'Bladdy bladdy blah.” and 'By all means blather on you egotistical moron.' eventually he started drawing pictures of the author being killed in very gory ways. These doodles probably took up a good deal of time but they managed to keep him at least slightly interested in what the book was saying.
Matthew picked up the last book, cracked it open, and began to read.
"You will probably never read this book.” it began, “Even now as I sit in my flat and type on my laptop I can see, among my many papers, a letter from one of my greatest friends, who I will not name, telling me that the Foremen are already building boxes to put my manuscripts in. But enough about me and my problems.” Matthew silently thanked the author.
“This book,'' the author continued, “was not written by me, or at least not entirely, this book was written by various different 16s and Ex-Members of the High Council. I am neither. I put my name to this book simply because I am an old man who does not have long to live so it does not matter if the Teacher have me arrested or attempt to discredit me in anyway. I hope that my legacy will stand on my numerous works of very dull and long history books. But it seems that I have succumbed to the plague of all historians and begun to talk about myself again. So without further ado, let us proceed.”
“We are all taught in House History class that the House was founded after the Great Unpleasantness, unfortunately that is actually incorrect. The Great Unpleasantness, which I will explain in great detail shortly, did not in fact precede the Founding of the House. Allow me to give you a little bit of a history on the founders.” Matthew grinned, finally a book that got right to the point and told it like it was. In fact, Matthew thought, not only was this guy kind of hilarious but he also was writing about things that nobody else seemed to have written about. Finally Matthew was getting answers to his questions.
“The Founders,” The book continued, “Were a group of important politicians, scientists, authors, businessmen, and professors who were a sort of, to put it mildly, prone to being a little pessimistic. The House was originally conceived by Prof. Harold Lucious, a famed science fiction writer and respected political essayist. He was also a member of The Diamonds, a society of politically and philosophically like minded people at National University which was, at that time, the biggest and most prestigious university in the United States of America. One night in late November in 2018, Prof. Lucious was at a dinner party and he fell into a debate with a member of the Violets, an opposing political society. The Violet, who numerous witnesses say was Thomas Newgate, the future president of the United States, challenged Prof. Lucious's assertion that the Mexico City Crisis, which was currently at it's most danger point, would cause the total destruction of the human race unless different actions were taken.”
“The Mexico City Crisis was rather a minor conflict, historically speaking. It was caused after the United States of American and the European Union, who were the two major powers in the world at that point, supported different sides during the Mexican Civil War. The war came to an end relatively quickly with both sides agreeing on a two state solution. The main problem was the question of Mexico City, should it be given to the Socialist Revolutionaries who's border contained Mexico City as the United States supported or should, as the Capitalists and the European Union proposed, the city be divide in half like Berlin was after World War two. This disagreement culminated in two ambassadors yelling at each other on the floor of the United nations building in Geneva. The Diamonds said that unless the President and her government began to prepare the entire human race would be wiped out. The Diamonds said that this devastation would occur when the European Union and the United States began to fight over Mexico City and then Palestine and Israel would jump in and and then China and Russia, then things would get out of hand very very quickly.”
“Thomas Newgate, a vocal supporter of the President took a very different approach than what Prof. Lucious was used to. Newgate knew that Prof. Lucious would be prepared for questions on how he got from the Mexico City Crisis to global apocalypse and he also knew that Prof. Lucious had worked a very good reason for that jump.”
“So, instead of attacking him on that Thomas Newgate attacked him on the second part of the argument. He asked him that, if the Mexico City Crisis would really lead to this apocalyptic event, then what could the President possibly due to stop it and save the human race?”
“Prof Lucious replied that she could have, should have, attempted to end, through diplomacy, the meaningless power struggle with the European Union and stopped her interference with other country's internal problems. Future President Newgate, who was already beginning to acquire a reputation as a gifted orator and master debated, replied that those were things that she could have done to prevent this supposedly impending apocalypse in the past, but what could she do now to save the human race?”
“Prof Lucious paused for a few minutes and thought. He then replied that the only way to make sure that the Human Race would survive would be too build a huge building that could produce all that it needed internally and seal off enough people inside to ensure that the population would survive. In his later letters Prof Lucious said that he viewed this as a winning argument but, to a man, everyone who was at the dinner party and heard the argument thinks that Thomas Newgate won.”
“A few days later it came out that one of the United States ambassadors to the United Nations, the one who began to yell at the European Union's ambassador was in fact an alcoholic and drug addict who was both drunk and high at the time that he began to yell at the European Union's ambassador. The President of the United States fired the ambassador in question and formally apologized to the European Union. Eventually it was agreed that the capitol would not in fact be shared and the Socialists would keep sole control of it. But the idea of the Isolation Building, as it was call then, was very popular among the Diamonds and, in 2020, they began to build it.”
“The Diamonds grew more and more concerned about the state of world affairs and they worked harder and harder on the Isolation Building. Finally, in December of 2033, it was finished. The Diamonds were split over whether or not they would move right in. Prof. Lucious was strongly in favor of moving in immediately but even though he was extraordinarily well respect among the Diamonds eventually they voted against moving in right away. Prof. Lucious was very upset and threatened to leave the Diamonds but before he could do that, things changed in a big way.”
“By this point in time the Diamonds were on their way out. In the last election, 2032, not only had Thomas Newgate won the Presidency in a huge landslide but the Violets had gained control of both houses of Congress and numerous governorships as well. But on December 23rd 2033 The International Space Exploration Foundation received a message. This message read as follows: 'Greetings Earthlings. We are the Sahlakian. We are from the Alpha Galaxy and we are pleased and delighted to have discovered intelligent life in the Epsilom Galaxy. We are currently en route to visit you and share technology with you. We plan to arrive in what we have deemed to be your most important city New York City in the United States of America. Our Estimate Day of Arrival is March 14th. We humbly ask that you assemble the leaders of your planet's various nations on that day in New York. We hope to share technology and knowledge with you in return for information about your culture. We thank you in advance for your help. Yours Most Sincerity the Sahlakian.' The Diamonds were convinced that these aliens were coming to invade. So, on January 17th 2034 they moved into the House and sealed it off from the outside.”
Matthew tossed down the book and shook his head. No way, he thought laughing a little, The Great Unpleasantness was an alien invasion? That was just too good to be true. But as awesome as an alien invasion was, and it was truly and completely awesome, it didn't really help him end the war. Maybe there were more goodies to come. Matthew picked the book up off the floor and began to read again.
“The greatest irony of this,” The book continued, “was that, like so many of the Diamond conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios, it turned out to be totally wrong. In 2045 a message was sent to the Diamonds from Thomas Newgate who had spent five years trying to find the House's location. No one is sure how he actually got in but somehow he did. He told everyone that aliens had done everything that they said they were going to. They were a peaceful people who had essentially eliminated large scale violence, poverty, and sickness in their culture and they were helping the people of the Earth to eliminate them as well. Thomas Newgate said that the House clearly served no purpose anymore so everyone should just come out and rejoin society. Most of the Founders supported this idea and the High Council voted for it by a pretty large margin despite the fact that Prof. Lucious was strongly opposed to the idea.”
“So the Founders began to make plans as to how to tell the public the shocking news but on the eve of their announcement Prof. Lucious activated a program that he and Prof. Leslie Kildare had hidden in the master computer.”
“Hold on!” Matthew said out loud, “What Master Computer? I didn't know we had a Master Computer!” He was so close to finally finding out the huge secret that Philip had discovered! He read on.
“This program totally sealed all exits to the outside world and transferred total control of the House's vital systems to Prof. Lucious. Prof. Kildare had helped to create the hidden program for cases of House emergency and he was furious that Prof. Lucious had taken power in this way. He hunted Prof. Lucious down, Prof. Lucious had gone into hiding after he activated the program, and confronted him. The confrontation turned violent and Prof. Kildare stabbed Prof. Lucious before Prof. Lucious shot him.”
“Prof. Lucious could not seek medical attention for his knife wound because he would have been arrested so he attempted to treat himself while still hiding from the Foremen. The Foremen eventually tracked him down and, after a Twenty one hour standoff in which twelve Formen were shot by Prof. Lucious. The Formen who captured him immediately took him to the hospital where he received emergency treatment but it was too late. His attempts to treat the wound had caused it to become infected and he would soon die in a hospital room under without ever regaining conciseness after the surgery.”
“Now, logically, this should be the end of the story; Prof. Lucious had tried to prevent everyone from going out by taking control of the Master Computer but then he died and the control of the Master Computer should pass back to the High Council and then they would open the doors and everyone would go out into the world. That would seem logical.”
“But Prof. Lucious' supporters were furious at how the Foremen had hunted down and arrested their hero so they rioted. The riot got more and more violent until they finally stormed the hospital room where the Professor lay dying. Prof. Lucious' opponents counter rioted and they also stormed the hospital room. The two opposing groups fought with each other and with the Foremen as Lucious lay dying and one of his opponents through an acid bomb into the hospital room. It exploded as Prof. Lucious drew his last breath and something very odd took place.”
“The hidden program acted in a very strange way. It did not simply change all the passwords so only Prof. Lucious knew them. In fact it linked the Master Computer directly to Prof. Lucious' brain, essentially making him the Master Computer. To this day nobody has any idea how this program was able to do that. When Prof. Lucious' brain stopped working what should have happened was that the Master Computer returned to simple being just a computer. But something went terribly terribly wrong, maybe it was the acid bomb, maybe it was Prof. Lucious' final revenge, or maybe it was just a flaw in the program, but whatever the cause the Master Computer gained a personality. And it shared both Prof. Lucious' intelligence and his arrogance. It realized that it needed the humans to stay inside the House otherwise it, the Master Computer, served no purpose. So the Master Computer kept the doors closed and gassed both the High Council and Thomas Newgate. The public had not been told why Thomas Newgate was there or why Prof. Lucious was arrested. The Foremen had announced that Prof. Lucious was wanted for a very serious crime but nobody knew what it was. Thus no one had any reason to suspect foul play and they believed that the gassing of the High Council was a tragic accident. When Teachers found a document on the Master Computer called 'New Charter' they believed that it was what the High Council had been working on at the time of their death”
“This charter outlawed romantic relationships, created the 16s, and also eliminated the original Charter. Thus what we believe is the Founding Charter was actually written by the Master Computer. It made romantic relationships illegal, while previously they had not only been allowed but encouraged as a way to increase the population of the House. Nobody is totally sure why the Master Computer decided to do this. Some believe that Prof. Lucious and by extension the Master Computer was a closeted homosexual and he was furious that his sexual orientation was looked down upon by the other Diamonds. Other believe that Prof. Lucious was hurt because of a bad breakup in his past and wanted to prevent anyone else from having to go through anything like that. Others think that Prof. Lucious, who was by all accounts a huge egotist and lost every close friend that he ever had because of his total obsession with himself and disregard of others, was disdainful of romance, seeing it as pointless and a huge time waster. Others do not think that Prof Lucious' thought and beliefs played no role in the new law rather being an attempt by the Master Computer to control the population.”
“As the years progressed The Master Computer tightened it's grip on the House and it began to want more. It thought that, since it was doing such a bang up job running the House, it should run the whole world and it began to prepare. It had the 16s build the underground floors to house a massive computer complex. The Master Computer than resolved to create the perfect battle plan, a flawless battle plan. The Master Computer resolved that it would spend as long as long as it would take but The Master Computer would created the perfect battle plan and then, and then it would conquer the world. It did not even take a decade before the Master Computer made a breakthrough; since The Master Computer was in charge of all the test tube babies it could mess with the genetic patterns of the unborn children. It would make them more violent and more prone to following leaders. It would make them the perfect soldiers. The Master Computer shared all of this information with its foot soldiers, the 16s. They would help create the perfect army and soon they would conquer the world. It was foolproof.”
Oh.” Matthew said dropping the book and starring off into the distance, “My. Freaking. God.” He saw how this would end the war. Both sides needed a common enemy, this Master Computer would be that common enemy. He had to find Margret.
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