through the low-lit hallway, coffee and cinnamon pop tart in hand,
wondering how his life had come to this. Office work, of all things.
Regular hours, regular money, and co-workers he could keep at bay with
superficial banter. It was not the life he had expected to lead. But
then, he was not the villain he thought he would be, so it made a kind
of bitter sense.
Gary W. Olson paused at the door to his work area. It had been a
while since he had even connected himself with the word 'villain,'
never mind with the name he had once made for himself as The
Programmer. Ever since Y2K made him one of its few actual victims,
causing him to tear off his circuit-laden clothes off in front of the
Los Angeles flophouse he at the time called home, he and villainy had
little to do with one another.
Well, sort of. He *did* work at an insurance company.
He pushed the door open and walked toward his cubicle. The area
he was in was once his company's customer service center, before those
jobs got outsourced. Now it housed the only programmers whose jobs
had not yet been shipped overseas, if only because they never let
become too clear exactly what it was they did.
Gary was not too sure what it was he did, either. Typically, as
soon as he returned from the break room with his thermos and his
vending-machine breakfast, he sat down and the day became a blur. He
did not mess around on the internet, because that sort of activity was
monitored. He was fairly sure his job involved databases, and
objects, and codes, and large text fields created to remind the
analysts what the codes they created actually meant. He had a lot of
scripts and programs he could spend half a second launching and the
rest of the day watching with a contemplative frown that would make
any passerby think he was actually paying attention and would soon
start typing -- possibly even the moment they left.
He did not think on company time. He certainly did not think of
his past as a failed supervillain.
Only now he had, and he could not figure out why.
Gary approached his cubicle, and gave a distracted hoist of the
thermos to Elias Sanders, his nominal boss. Elias waved back, and
Gary stopped at the entrance to his boss's slightly larger cube.
"Morning," said Gary. "How'd the drive in go?"
"Aaaaah," Elias replied, shaking his head, "they've got the route
I take torn to shreds for construction, so I was on the surface
streets for half of the morning just getting in."
Gary emitted a noise of sympathy.
"And, Christ, can you believe what gas is up to these days?"
Elias asked. "Can't Superguy do something about that? You know,
round up all the oil company execs and give 'em super-wedgies until
they lower the prices?"
Gary made a 'hmmm' noise. He was not sure if it was actually
sympathetic, since Elias lived a hundred and twenty miles from where
they worked and drove an SUV that got slightly worse gas mileage than
a toy train, but Elias took it as such.
"It's getting so I'm going to have to quit smoking again just to
pay for gas," said Elias. "I'm thinking of selling the truck and my
house, buying an RV, and just drive that around when I'm off work.
I'll still be broke, but at least I won't have to drive so far...."
Already heading to his cubicle, Gary grunted over his shoulder.
Elias returned to whatever it was he had been doing, which Gary
guessed involved messing around with his 'fantasy football' team
lineup. It was how Elias took a little back from the system that took
so much. Everyone had to have something.
Gary sat down and logged in. He did not so much as twitch when
the nanofilaments shot up from the keyboard and pierced his
fingertips. He drooled only a little when the system logged in to him.
"Programmer," said a voice inside his head. "Can you hear me?"
It was a woman's voice, and was smooth and rough all at once. He
heard it and remembered what it was he did during the day, and why he
was remembering his time as a villain.
"The," he said.
"What?"
"'The' Programmer," he said.
Silence reigned for a few moments.
"What. Ever."
It was a good voice, The Programmer reflected. A bit of Bette
Davis, a bit of Lana Turner, a bit of Yury Mitsuke.
"Look," said the voice, "we've got data back from the bank job.
There were problems with your circuits."
"I told you there would be," said The Programmer. "I'm a hands-
on guy. Design in C-space is not what I do. All those circuits I
used to have on my shirt, I did myself. Bring me in, and I can have
your circuits working in an--"
"No," the voice interrupted. "You will work as you have been."
Perhaps 'good' was not the operative word to describe the voice,
The Programmer thought. Though it was hard to make value judgments
about a disembodied voice, this one continually suggested 'evil.'
"Okay," said The Programmer. "Send me the data."
As data streamed in, The Programmer told the voice about the
limitations of C-space, and how the problems with the bank job were
ones he had warned her about, and how that was entirely not his fault
and should not be reflected in his performance review.
The voice responded to this with hmmms and grunts. He suspected
they were not sympathetic.
***
RAD
Episode 92
[ Rad Returns, Part Two of Ten ]
"That is Certainly a Mammal"
by
Gary W. Olson,
who hopes it won't take so long next time
***
Rad was unsure what his expectations had been of the Mega-
Intelligence Bureau, but the drab office building ten blocks north of
the C Building did not meet them. He almost did not recognize it as a
secret government building because there was no sign denying that it
was a secret government building. Instead, there were several signs
stating that it was a non-secret government building, housing
'Homeland Security,' which Rad was sure was the M.I.B.'s latest front.
The building's security team seemed less than pleased to see him,
though that may have had something to do with his landing right at the
front door, bypassing its rings of concrete blocks, barbed wire, guard
dogs, and heavily armed people. As he escorted Rad in, the head of
security, a burly man named Carl, remarked that had they not been
warned in advance that Rad would drop in that way, there would have
been trouble.
Rad did not answer. Until he saw his daughter, he did not know
how much trouble there would be, or how much would be instigated by him.
Carl led him to an office on the second floor. He opened the
door, but did not follow Rad in.
"Like, have a nice day, dude," Rad said as Carl walked away.
Carl replied with an unsympathetic grunt.
The outer office looked like it should have had a staff of six,
judging from the number of computers and desks and donuts and still-
steaming mugs of coffee. He wondered why everyone had vacated the
premises.
An anvil crashed through a wall and crushed a monitor. A
youthful 'oops' sound came through the new hole in the wall.
The door to the inner office was open, and Rad peered through.
It was a large room that held furniture enough for a small room. One
of the two leather sofas was overturned, and Rad saw young Johnny
Clark atop it, looking at the new hole in the nearby wall as though it
had appeared suddenly and without warning.
"Hey, little dude," said Rad. "Your anvil, like, went--"
"Cool!" Johnny exclaimed. "A fully destructible environment!"
"Like... what?"
"Can I go find my anvil, Mizzzz?"
A sound that was a bit too tiny and strangulated to be
sympathetic came from Rad's left. Jonathan instantly interpreted that
sound to be permission and ran out of the room. Rad winced at the
ensuing crashing noises.
"I could have told you that would happen," he heard his daughter
Rumiko say. She was on the other leather couch, this one upright and
next to the desk. Her attention was riveted to the small shiny
plastic rectangular thing in her hand. She was tapping with
psychokinesis-driven quickness at the thing's buttons.
"Rumi," said Rad. "Like, are you okay? Did they, like,
interrogate you or, like, y'know, make digital clock noises at you?"
"I'm fine, Dad," Rumiko replied, still not looking up. "There.
That got it. Try it now." She handed the rectangular object to the
slender and rather stern-looking woman behind the small oak desk. Rad
observed that some small letters on the back of the object identified
it as a 'SpoonBerry.'
The woman behind the desk tapped several keys and nodded.
"This is amazing," she said. "It actually works now the way it
did the day before the warranty expired."
"Like, ahem."
The woman look up, and her look of surprise vanished. In its
place was severity and something that was not exactly calculation --
more of a look that said she was taking him apart with her eyes and
did not care if he watched as she did. Her light brown hair was
shorter than Rad remembered, and the lines on her face were deeper,
but Rad nonetheless recognized her.
The woman who had hunted his sister Akane across the world.
Hunted her to what appeared to most of the world to be her death.
"Like, you're Karina Selanova, right?"
She nodded once. Rad noticed that there was a small plate on the
desk with her name. It identified her as a Director, though not what
she Directed. Rad guessed it was some kind of general, free-floating
Direction.
"Mr. Moroboshi," said Karina, "or would you prefer to be called--"
"That's, like, fine," Rad interrupted. "Why are you, like,
arresting, like, my daughter and stuff?"
"They're not arresting me, Dad," Rumiko said. She sounded
faintly embarrassed, though Rad could not tell whether it was due to
the situation itself or due to him not knowing it was not *that* kind
of situation. "Right, Mrs. Selanova?"
"Right," said Karina. Rad noticed the thin gold ring on the ring
finger of her left hand, and tried to remember if he had been told
about this, or her spouse's name. She clearly had not taken her
spouse's last name, so he had no help there. "The reason we detained
your daughter and--"
What was presumably Johnny Clark's name was drowned out by a loud
crash from the outer office. Karina winced, but continued.
"--was that they were buzzing a jet that was on its way to LAX."
"Johnny wasn't," Rumi said. Rad noticed she had folded her hands
in her lap, and was staring at them. "He can't fly yet."
"So your daughter was flying and... let me just check this."
Karina looked at a paper on her desk. "'Tossing Mr. Clark up in the
air like an anvil-toting frisbee, then catching him. Mr. Clark was
cheerfully elevating the degree of difficulty by tossing the anvil
while in mid-air.'"
"Like... er..."
"At 25,000 feet in the air, they got close enough that the pilot
and passengers could tell Johnny was cheerful," said Karina. "That's
way too close."
"Like, yah, but--"
"But nothing," Karina snapped. "It's a damn good thing for you I
was able to keep this capped and out of the media. Otherwise they
would have been arrested."
"By, like, the Mega-Intelligence Bureau?"
"Dad--" Rumi started.
Karina blinked, and for a brief moment appeared angry. Then the
sternness returned.
"Despite what you may believe," she said, "Homeland Security is
*not* the M.I.B. A good part of my job is to keep it that way."
"Like, so--"
"This is not the eighties, Mr. Moroboshi. You can't exit a plane
that's in flight and then use your powers to make it look like you're
walking out onto the wing for a little lie-down. Nor do you get to
fling anvils or little boys past the cockpit. As Superguys, you're
welcome to ride in planes or save them from crashing. Fucking around
with them in their airspace is a felony."
"But she's not arresting me," Rumi added. Though Rad could tell
she was trying to reassure him, he heard a worried tone in her words.
"No, I'm not," said Karina. "Consider it a one-time warning.
You're not in the Eighties anymore."
Rad said nothing. He concentrated on keeping his cool.
Karina started to say something else, then frowned. "Why don't I
hear more crashing from out there?"
"Like," said Rad, "do you really, like, want to know?"
"No," Karina and Rumi said at the same time.
"You're free to go," said Karina. "But I would appreciate it if
you could answer a few questions for me on the bank heist you stopped
today."
"Yeah!" Rumi exclaimed. "Did they have guns? Were you
outnumbered?"
"They were, like, all old dudes," said Rad. "They were, like,
saying all this, y'know, weird stuff when, like, I got there."
"Such as?"
"Like, the usual, like, stuff. Like, they kept saying they were,
y'know, like, bank robbers, and like, 'robbers of bank' and 'takers of
hostage,' like, with ultrascience."
"Did you see anything overtly... um... ultrasciencey?" Karina
asked.
Rad shook his head. "No, like, [Space Science!] that I could
see, like, y'know? They also, like, for a little bit, were, like,
trying to be the 13th caller and, like, get tickets for, like, a
Jessica Simpson concert."
"Jessica Simpson?"
Rad shrugged. "I haven't, like, watched 'the Simpsons' in, like
years. Like, one of the new characters, like, right?"
"An actual person," Karina corrected. "Barely, from what I
understand. Was there anything else that was off about the robbers?"
"Later on, like, they said they, like, had to shake their laffy
taffy."
"What's a 'laffy taffy,' dad?" Rumi asked.
"A kind of candy," Karina answered for Rad. "Also the double
entendre subject of a mediocre rap song that was popular last year.
Did they proceed to shake their laffy taffy?"
Rad shook his head. "They, like, had no laffy taffy."
Karina nodded. Such was often the fate of villains.
"Well, that's all the questions I have," she said. "You're all
free to go."
"I'll go find Johnny, Dad," Rumi said, as she flew past him and
out of the office.
Rad nodded to Karina and started to turn away.
"I'm sorry," said Karina.
"Like, what?"
"About Akane."
For a moment, Rad was puzzled as to why Karina was apologizing.
Then he remembered that Karina was among the many who did not know the
truth.
"Like, it's okay," he said. "You did, like, what you had to,
like, do, y'know?"
Karina looked like she wanted to say something else, but just
nodded. From the outer office came a tremendous crashing noise.
"Awwww," they heard Johnny Clark say. "My tower fell."
"Leave it," said Rumi. "Remember what I told you about looking
nonchalant."
"Nonchawhat?"
"Like, er," said Rad. "I'd better, like, round them up and,
like, get going."
"Yes," Karina agreed. "Say 'hi' to Chalandra for me tomorrow."
It was not until he, Rumi, and Johnny were out the door and in
the air that Rad realized he had not told her about tomorrow night's
plans.
(continued in part two, following...)
--
Gary W. Olson
swede3000 at earthlink dot net
swede at novitious dot com
LiveJournal: http://gwox.livejournal.com