As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s important to recognize the clever manipulation by big corporations who’ve shifted the burden of reducing carbon footprints onto individuals, while they continue to produce the majority of emissions. It’s time for us to fight back and hold them accountable.
Despite the noble intent behind planting a tree on Earth Day, we must realize that the real power to protect our planet lies in taking action against the root of the problem: corporate greed and politicians who accept money from oil companies.
Oil companies and other large corporations are notorious for fueling the climate crisis. They’ve invested heavily in public relations campaigns that push the narrative of individual responsibility, driving consumers to change their habits. While personal choices are essential, focusing solely on our carbon footprints can be a distraction from the bigger picture.
So, this Earth Day, let’s stand together and demand change. Don’t just plant a tree — vote out every politician who takes money from oil companies. As citizens, we have the power to shape policies that prioritize our environment and demand that corporations take responsibility for the damage they cause.
It’s time to recognize the deception and demand real action. This Earth Day, let’s focus on voting for leaders who truly care about our planet and hold corporations accountable. We have the power to make a difference, and we must use it to protect the Earth for future generations.
We live in the future. AI programs paint pictures of my characters based on my descriptions.
Right to left, top to bottom: Lulu, Tom, and Franchesca from All You See is Light; Eva from No Such Thing as Mermaids; Yvonne Fong from Typewriter Repairman; the Lacerta Simio creatures from Seeds From Ancient Earth, and Katherina also from Seeds From Ancient Earth.
Harold saw an opening in the crowd and made a break for it, hoping to slip past the overhead eyes that kept track of day-to-day humanity. They could see inside people, but it was hard, he knew, for them to see through people. The best place to hide was in a crowd.
From the grackles.
They were silly-looking black birds with long tails and yellow eyes — yellow X-ray eyes, as it turned out — and were armed with long, razor-sharp beaks. For four miserable years now they ruled as malevolent dictators, acting like some Hitchcockian nightmare when a human got out of line. The punishment was swift, sudden, and final.
Thou shalt not break the laws of the grackle.
No one had paid much attention as they migrated, spread, multiplied. An invasive species is all they were. Our own fault since we’d cut down their rainforest homes. They had to go somewhere, right?
To them, you see, we were the invasive species.
Even Harold had known, dimly, that they could talk — like a parrot could talk. He’d read about it somewhere. But no one, not even animal behaviorists on the extreme edge, had any idea the shiny black birds were plotting. Scheming. Positioning themselves for a strategic win.
Don’t dare call it “Bird Day.” Don’t refer to it, out loud, as “Avian Armageddon.” Refer to it by the proper name, the name they decreed we refer to it as: “Grackle Win Big, Mankind Stupid Day.” Make sure to pronounce it with the proper respectful inflection as well, or risk a beak hole in your cranium.
Harold had made it from the doorway and into the crowd. He kept his head down, his hands in his trench coat pockets. He heard the sound of fluttering wings pass overhead, and just as he feared, there came the piercing shriek of an alarm.
The noise they made. The noise. It would put a Moog synthesizer to shame. But it wasn’t just noise — it was their language. And not just their language, but also the language of other birds, other animals. The grackles were consummate masters of cross-species communication.
“Eggs stolen!” they began announcing in English. “Eggs stolen!”
“Egg thief! Egg thief!”
The words were punctuated with organ chords, bells, sirens, cell phone rings … a cacophony of alarms from a huge random library of sound bites. This was combined with more and more flapping of wings as the alarm spread and the grackles took to the air. Harold kept his head down and like everyone around him, just kept walking — pretending none of this was happening. The man next to him muttered the f-word under his breath. The woman in front of him, young with curly dark blonde hair and smelling of flowery perfume, echoed the sentiment.
One of the grackles swooped down from its perch on a streetlight and landed on her head. She made an “Eeek!” sound and froze, trembling. The bird however only used her as a perch — its yellow X-ray eyes were staring at Harold. First one eye, then after a turn of the head, the other.
“Human!” it said. “You smell of fear!”
“I’m afraid of beautiful women,” Harold told it.
“What is beautiful women?” it crawed at him.
“You’re sitting on one. She frightens me.”
“This woman is not beautiful!” The bird’s voice cracked and hit pitches so high that it hurt Harold’s ears. “She smells of bad flower chemical butt smell!”
“This is why I fear her.”
“Stupid human!” The bird bounded into the air, iridescent black wings flapping, yanking a few of the young lady’s hairs out as it flew off.
The young woman turned to look at Harold. Before he could say a word or mutter some sort of apology, she slapped his face. Hard. Then without further comment, she turned again and resumed walking, as did the others in the crowd around them.
The shock of the pain and the stinging of the skin on his face didn’t bother him. The truth was women did scare him. That’s why the bird flew away — it didn’t detect a lie. Harold shook it off and deliberately put one foot in front of the other, falling back into the flow of the crowd, his head down as before. The cacophony and flapping wings continued above.
Harold made it out of the area, crossing a bridge over murky water, and then entered his apartment building without further confrontation. Once behind locked doors and closed curtains, Harold gently extracted a handkerchief from deep within his trench coat pocket and, holding it before him, gingerly unwrapped five tiny eggs. They were light blue with dark lines and spots as if someone had spilled ink on them. He held them, taking shaking breaths, his hands trembling.
These five delicate objects would fetch a fortune on the black market. It was the ultimate defiance. The eggs of the enemy. But Harold had no intention of selling them. They might be tiny, you see, but they were delicious.
Deep into last year’s lockdown I started writing a new novel, and a large part of the novel revolves around a typewriter. Not just any typewriter, but a very specific typewriter: A Royal “Gray Magic” Quiet Deluxe, the favorite of both Ernest Hemingway and James Bond author Ian Fleming.
So, for research, I decided I need to try and find one, and as luck would have it I was able to find a pristine specimen on eBay.
And what a specimen! This machine is a perfect example of how companies used to build products to last and last. This typewriter is over 70 years old and still works perfectly. It’s as solid as the proverbial tank.
But why a typewriter? What the hell?
This is why: it’s basically a character in my newest novel. Or, for those familiar with Alfred Hitchcock’s terminology, it’s the “McGuffin” for the story.
Not to be confused with a “McMuffin” which is what my word processor’s spell checker keeps trying to change it to.
The fantasy, set in 1982, features a protagonist who is a typewriter repairman, and is fated to fulfill a part in the gods’ plan to fix a problem created years before.
Let me just leave it at that.
But, if I’m going to write about a Royal Quiet Deluxe, I need one in my hands. I need to know what it feels like, how heavy it is, what all the parts do, how to change the ribbon, how to set the margins, etc. So, in my mind at least, I needed the genuine article in my possession for the sake of the story.
But that purchase sent me going further down the nostalgia rabbit hole. You see, way before word processors I used to write on typewriters, and for the longest time I used the venerable old IBM Selectric. But even before that I had the typewriter my parents gave me for my 12th birthday, way back when I had first announced to them that I was going to be a novelist. And that was…
I thought, hey, if I can buy the Royal Quiet Deluxe, just for fun I should see if I could get my old original typewriter as well. Not the exact one, mind you, but one exactly like it. The actual make, model, year, and even banana yellow color. However, this turns out to be a rather rare typewriter, probably because it didn’t hold up that well.
Because, you know … plastic.
My search turned up nothing, but at the very least I did set up an automatic search on eBay, just in case one ever did turn up. And didn’t cost an arm and leg.
About three COVID-19 seclusion weeks trundled past, and suddenly I get this pop up message on my phone from the eBay app. “Hey, we found your typewriter.” (It didn’t say that, exactly, but that was the gist of the message.)
I looked at it. Amazed. It was exactly like my original typewriter. It was in pristine condition. And it did not cost an arm and a leg.
Boom. Sold. Bought it on the spot. (eBay is dangerous that way.)
It even has the stickers that I remember. It’s so much like the original that I sometimes wonder if fate somehow handed me my actual original.
This is a pure nostalgia purchase. I made sure it works (to my surprise it types nicer than the Royal Quiet Deluxe), but UPS was not kind to it during shipping, and I had to gingerly piece parts of it back together. Still, it works, and it’s mine, and now it sits next to the replica of my original Canon FTb camera.
So, guess what I did? I wrote it into the story as well. After all, the protagonist is a typewriter repairman, so why wouldn’t he have a Montgomery Ward Escort 55 typewriter sitting on his workbench?
As a bonus, that makes both of them a tax write off as well.
Anyway, this new novel was finished later that year, sent off to my editor, and is now published and available. Here’s my box of author’s copies.
Just in case anyone is curious, here’s a link to it on Amazon: Typewriter Repairman
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of my becoming a “professional” fantasy and science fiction writer, I thought it would be fun to dust off and publish a slightly-updated version of that very first fiction sale,The Penalties of Pirating, which appeared in the Fall 1992 issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction Magazine.
I’m basing the anniversary on the date of the acceptance letter, which was August 21st. Oddly, the check that was written out to me was dated August 8th, so for a while I contemplated that being the official anniversary. But, no, I’m going to go with the dated acceptance letter.
Below is the story, as well as the artwork that appeared with it. The artist, Larry Blamire, is the very same genius that wrote, directed, and starred in the classic science fiction spoof, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. I only discovered that a few weeks ago. I think I was more excited by that development than I am about the anniversary itself.
Art by Larry Blamire
The Penalties of Pirating
by Jerry J. Davis
Paco was on the fourth floor, sitting beside the open window with his stolen infra-red shades strapped to his head, when there was a car wreck up the hill. A big black Ferrari tried to take the corner too fast and ended up with the corner of a 250-year-old brick building buried halfway up into the hood. Paco muttered, “Whoa!” and climbed out the window and onto the fire escape, watching.
As the hapless driver was struggling to open his crumpled door, a blue IBM business limo came sliding to a stop beside it. Men with guns piled out and opened fire on the man before he could make it out of the wreck. He dropped a black case onto the sidewalk and it popped open. Dozens of shiny gold disks spilled out. Most stopped within a few feet, but one came rolling down the hill like a wheel. Paco held his breath, watching. It rolled right down to the corner below him and dropped into a storm drain. One of the men came running down after it, and Paco slipped back into the window and out of sight.
The man below searched in vain, not finding the golden disk. He trudged back up the hill, where his comrades were gathering up the rest. They took the disks and the black case and drove away, leaving the Ferrari and the driver behind.
Paco jumped out the window and raced down the fire escape to the sidewalk, pulled the grate off the storm drain, and peered down into the murk with his ‘red shades set to full enhancement. The disk gleamed like something made of light itself. He grabbed it, shoved it deep into his coat pocket, and was back up on the fourth floor in less than a minute.
Back up inside the apartment, Paco rinsed it off in the sink and took a good look at it under a light. It was an old-style data disk, no markings on it, and no serial number. Exactly the kind of archaic tech that governments still used. He slipped it into a slot on his clunky old gaming machine and fired it up. Just as he’d thought, it was a coded computer program, a very large and sophisticated one by the looks of it. Firing up a hacking program, he used it to determine the decoding password and wrote it on a little label, and stuck it on the top side of the disk.
The next day he traded it to Melvin Chevaux for a petabyte of counterfeit neural RAM and a really wicked throwing knife. Three days later Chevaux sold it to Francisco the Fence for ¥300 macro dollars and a stolen case of chicken-flavored whiskey. Francisco the Fence passed it off for ¥550 to Dano Sharks, the software pirate. Dano made a lot of noise, grumbling about the price, but turned right around and sold it for an even ¥1000 to Leo Itoya, the insurance broker. Leo was pleased at the price, for he’d been looking for a cheap stand-alone AI all week. It was for Lolita, his secretary.
Lolita had been complaining for two months straight that she needed some help around the office. An AI program was not what she had in mind — she wanted Leo to hire her cousin, Wanda Lopez, because Wanda needed a job. Leo had another idea altogether. Dano Sharks had told him this AI was programmed as a business administrator, to take the initiative and to give orders. It was obviously some government thing, probably the same program that ran the welfare office. He was going to load it into his office computer and give it control. Lolita was going to be helping it, not the other way around.
The next evening, after Lolita had gone home, Leo sat down with a six-pack and his office computer to see if he could figure the new software out. He dusted-off and plugged in an old optical reader that had been in a cardboard box under his desk for years, and, praying it would still work, slotted in the golden disk. To his relief it loaded up, and he typed in the code word from the label.
The program immediately went all through his computer system, checking everything out, then presented a list of what it found. At the bottom it flashed a question in capital letters:
WHAT IS MY GOAL?
“Smart program!” Leo said. He leaned forward and typed at the keyboard, answering: YOUR GOAL IS TO MAKE MONEY SELLING LIFE INSURANCE.
WHAT IS LIFE INSURANCE? it asked.
“Oh jeeze, you mean I have to explain the entire concept of insurance to this thing?” Leo concentrated for a moment, then typed: LIFE INSURANCE IS A SERVICE WHICH PAYS THE CUSTOMER A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY IF SOMEONE DIES.
HOW DOES THIS SERVICE OPERATE? it asked.
Leo sipped his beer. This really was an intelligent program. WE SELL THE INSURANCE, he typed, AND THE CLIENT PAYS A CERTAIN AMOUNT A MONTH. IF THE CLIENT DIES WHILE HE IS INSURED, HIS BENEFACTOR IS PAID THE AMOUNT OF MONEY AGREED UPON IN THE INSURANCE CONTRACT. Leo continued typing, going into details. The program grasped everything he told it, except one thing.
HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY IF YOU HAVE TO EVENTUALLY PAY IT ALL BACK? THERE APPEARS TO BE A FLAW IN YOUR SCHEME.
Leo laughed out loud. Bright program! Very intelligent. THE WHOLE SCHEME DEPENDS UPON THE CLIENT NOT DYING WHILE BEING INSURED. IT ALSO DEPENDS UPON A LARGE AND CONTINUOUSLY RENEWED SOURCE OF NEW CLIENTS.
The program was still perplexed. IN ORDER FOR THE SCHEME TO CONTINUE, AND FOR YOU TO MAKE MONEY, IT DEMANDS AN EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. IT IS AN UNSTABLE AND UNREALISTIC SCHEME.
YES, IT IS. Leo was laughing as he typed this. BUT THAT’S NOT OUR PROBLEM. WE ONLY SELL THE INSURANCE, WE’RE NOT THE COMPANY THAT PAYS OFF THE BENEFICIARIES WHEN AN INSURED CLIENT DIES. WE GET SALES COMMISSIONS FROM ABOUT TWO DOZEN INSURANCE COMPANIES. TO MAKE MONEY, I HAVE TO SELL A LOT OF INSURANCE. THAT IS WHY I NEED YOUR HELP.
I UNDERSTAND. The two words glowed on the screen, and the program asked no more questions. The computer sat quiet, inert, like it was waiting for further instructions. Leo was wondering where he should go from there when suddenly the printer whirred and spit out a page:
FOR THE SCHEME LIFE INSURANCE SALES I WILL REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING:
20 PETABYTES ADDITIONAL DATA STORAGE
1 QUANTUM-ENCRYPTED VPN ACCOUNT
ACCESS CODE TO COMPANY BANK ACCOUNT
IF YOU WISH, I CAN BEGIN SEARCHING FOR THE LOWEST COST SOURCES OF THE ABOVE ITEMS.
Leo gaped at the list. A quantum-encrypted VPN? he thought. What’s wrong with the regular VPN? Shaking his head, he reluctantly gave the program permission to order what it needed. After all, he’d just spent ¥1000 on the program — it would be ¥1000 wasted if it didn’t have what it needed to do its job.
When he reached his office the next morning, he found a delivery van in front and an upset receptionist inside. The items the computer had ordered were already there, with a technician hooking them up, and Lolita was tearfully asking Leo why he was mad with her.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
Her pretty lower lip thrust up and trembling, she said, “This!” and confronted him with a computer-printed note. The AI had fired her and had printed out a severance check — it was even signed.
“I didn’t tell the computer to fire you!” Leo exclaimed.
“Oh, yeah right. It did it on its own.”
“It did! I’ve got this new AI program—“
“Spare me, Leo! If you can’t face me with the truth, that’s your problem. Don’t insult me with a stupid story about the computer. How dumb do you think I am, anyway?”
“But Lolita—“
Lolita angrily stuffed her check between her breasts and left. He followed her halfway down the block but she wouldn’t speak to him, so he gave up and returned to the office. He entered just as the technician was finishing with the computer. “Sign here, please,” he said to Leo.
Halfway through signing Leo noticed the price. “Six-thousand dollars!”
“Yeah, I thought it was a mistake too,” the technician said. “But the company confirmed it, you got a great deal.”
“Great deal!? Six thousand is a great deal?”
“For fourteen-thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, I’d say so!”
Leo finished signing and the technician left. Beside him, the printer began whirring and pages began slipping out. Leo picked one up and found it was a sales letter, very well written in an appealing style, addressed to someone whom he didn’t know. What startled him was that — like on Lolita’s severance check — his own signature was at the bottom. “What the hell is this?”
“I am assuming you are you are talking to me,” a female voice said. It was coming from the computer’s speaker. “During the evening I gained access to several nearby hospital data banks and compiled a list of people who are in outstanding health according to recent physical examinations. I am writing them a form letter and then will follow up with a phone call to secure an appointment. As appointments are made, I will print out daily schedules for you to follow.”
Leo felt a little dizzy, trying to take this all in. “How did you do my signature?”
“I was able to pull a sample of your signature out of the memory buffer of the scanning peripheral. The signature is from a letter you scanned yesterday morning.”
“Why did you fire Lolita?”
“Her pay was unnecessary overhead.”
“What makes you think I wanted her fired?”
“My purpose is to make money selling life insurance. It was a business decision which needed to be made.”
“You should have asked me first.”
“You did not specify that beforehand.”
“You, I…” Leo threw his hands into the air and sat down in his desk chair. What was the point in arguing with a machine? The fact was the machine appeared to be doing her job already, and with much more efficiency. Had the machine not fired her, he would have never been able to bring himself to do it.
It had actually done him a favor.
Sitting there, thinking about it, he suddenly had a swelling sensation of well-being. Picking up one of the freshly printed sales letters, he read it over again with growing admiration. This program really knew what it was doing. It was most definitely the best investment he’d ever made.
During the next several weeks, Leo was busier than he’d ever been in his career as an insurance agent. The computer program, which he’d come to call “Partner,” kept his schedule full every single day. Even better, all his new contacts were already primed to buy his life insurance. Partner was doing most of the selling in letters and over the phone — using its seductive female voice — and Leo was just calling on them in person to get the papers signed.
The bank account swelled. After two months Leo bought a new car. A month after that, he put a down payment on a big new condo.
Leo was coming out of a restaurant after a terrific dinner when he ran into Dano Sharks, the software pirate from which he’d bought the AI program. Dano looked a bit shocked to see Leo, and looked around nervously like he was checking to make sure they were alone. They were in a parking garage, with no one else in sight.
“Dano! That software works great!”
“Yeah, yeah of course it does.” Dano was still looking around nervously. He leaned close to Leo and said in a low voice, “You haven’t given a copy of it away to anyone, or anything, have you?”
“No.”
“Have you told anyone about it? About where you got it?”
“No. I haven’t even told anyone I have it. I know better than that. It’s pirated.”
“That’s really good to hear, man. You’ve gotta keep it to yourself. Know what I’m saying? To yourself.” Dano’s voice and expression were intense.
“Sure,” Leo said, “of course I will.”
“You’d better, and don’t you tell anyone where you got it.”
“I won’t. Why what’s wrong?”
“You got yourself a deal on that program, man,” Dano said. “It’s hot, it’s really hot. You say it’s working good for you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well there’s feds poking around looking for it, man. You don’t want to know who wrote it. You just don’t want to know.”
“Who?”
“The Agency, man. The NSA.”
“No!”
“I knew it was a government program when I sold it to you, but I had no idea how heavy a government program it was. As far as I’m concerned, I never sold it to you. I never saw it. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. And I definitely don’t have it.”
“You got it man. You don’t have it. It doesn’t exist.”
With that they parted ways, and Leo drove home feeling jumpy and nervous. The next morning, which was the first of the month, he got a call from a representative of one of the insurance companies he dealt with. It was a friendly guy named Ted Franklin. “Jeeze, what did you do?” he said. “Hire a hit man?”
“What?” Leo said.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Oh, well . . .” Ted’s voice assumed a more somber quality. “Three of your clients were all killed on a bus last night.”
“You’re kidding! Which ones?”
“Three biggies, Leo. A Maxwell Stout, a John Segrahm, and a Wendy Boston. All three had policies for fifteen million apiece.”
“Oh no!”
“Yeah.” Some of the humor crept back into Ted’s voice. “What are you trying to do, break us? Forty-five million macro dollars, Leo! All from clients whose policies just barely matured.”
“You’re not saying you think that I had anything to do with it!”
“Oh, no! Leo, I’m just giving you a bad time. I just thought you’d like to know. I mean, it’s odd.”
“My God, no kidding.”
They said goodbye and hung up, and Leo had to rush out of the office to make it to an appointment. Later that afternoon, after a full and successful day, Leo arrived home and relaxed for a while in his new hot tub, then dried off and sat down at his kitchen table for his monthly ritual. It was the first of the month, and his inbox was full of bills.
He pulled out his phone and logged into his bank. Accessing his account, he prepared to begin his bill-paying ritual when he noticed his bank balance. “What the hell!?” he shouted.
A half-million dollars had been deposited that very day.
Using his security code, he looked over the transfer list and found it had come from a Swiss account.
A Swiss account?
He didn’t have a Swiss account! He called the Swiss bank and tried to access the mysterious account with his computer, and to his astonishment, his code worked and he was in.
There were ¥44,500,000.00 macro dollars in the account. The transfer record showed three deposits of ¥15,000,000.00 apiece from three other Swiss accounts, and one transfer of ¥500,000.00 into his local account. Forty-five million macro dollars total.
Forty-five million, he thought. Forty-five million! Leo broke into a sweat, wondering what was going on.
After a sleepless night, he drove to his office early and confronted his computer. “Partner,” he said, “why is there over forty-four million in a Swiss account in my company’s name?”
“We have made a substantial profit,” the program told him.
“How did we make this money?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to know,” the computer’s speaker repeated.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Information on covert undertakings is only given out on a strictly need-to-know basis.”
“Covert undertakings?”
There was a sudden, loud, heavy-handed knock on the door. It was the kind of knock a policeman makes. Leo opened the office door and with a hot, sinking feeling of terror, saw it was a square-jawed man with steel-colored eyes dressed in a uniform and carrying a gun in a holster. There was a big badge on his chest. “Leo Itoya?”
“Yes?”
“Can I see some I.D. please?”
Leo looked past the uniformed man and saw a big, silver armored car sitting on the street outside. He pulled his wallet out with numb fingers and flipped it open, displaying his I.D.
“Can you pull it out, please?”
Leo pulled it out and handed it to the man. It was zipped through a pocket reader and handed back to him. “Thank you, Mr. Itoya. We’ll bring it right in.” The uniformed man walked back to the armored car, and he and another uniformed man came back carrying a big box of blazing red ¥20.00 bills. “Sign here, please.”
Leo signed. He was handed a receipt for the delivery of a half-million macro dollars in cash, and with that the uniformed men unceremoniously left. The box of money sat on his desk, more money than he’d ever seen in his life.
“This is incredible,” he said.
“A man will be by here to pick that up at noon,” Partner said. “It would be best if you were not present.”
“Why?”
“Information on covert undertakings is only given out on a strictly need-to-know basis.”
“You said that already.”
“It is a tried-and-true policy.”
Leo stared at the machine, his mind reeling with the implications. “Okay,” he said. “I’m out of here.”
The printer spat out a list of appointments. Leo snatched them and left. He walked down the street to where he’d parked his car, got in it, and sat there thinking. This is out of control, he told himself. This is totally out of control. As he sat there, a sharply rectangular, black IBM business car pulled up and parked in front of his office. A tall, darkly-tanned man with a scarred-up face got out, looked casually up and down the street, then stepped into Leo’s office. A moment later he came out carrying the box of money. When he bent over to put the box in his car, the man’s business jacket flopped open to reveal a large ugly IBM business gun in a shoulder holster. For just a moment his eyes met Leo’s, then got into the black car and drove away.
Leo broke out in a full sweat. He had to see Dano Sharks about this. Dano sold him the software. Dano must know how to stop it.
He started his car and headed downtown, driving fast. In ten minutes, he was pulling into the parking lot of Mark Chevy’s Pawn Shop, which was where he usually found the data pirate. Entering the shop, he walked past the counters, heading toward the back — but a short, fat guy stopped him. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to see Dano,” Leo said.
“Dano ain’t here no more.”
“No?”
Apparently Leo looked panic-stricken, because the man’s expression softened and his voice lowered. “Were you a friend of his?”
“I’m one of his better customers.”
The man nodded. In still a lower voice he said, “Sharks was killed yesterday in a car wreck. Just between you and me, I think he was bumped off.” He pulled back some, let his voice rise. “That’s just my opinion, though.”
“Bumped off!”
“Not so loud. Yes, bumped off. Brakes just don’t fail at the same time a throttle gets stuck down. It just doesn’t happen without some sort of help, you know what I mean?”
Leo’s head was spinning. He turned and rushed out of the pawn shop to his car, just in time to see a thin man bending down and looking into the window. “Get away from my car!” Leo shouted.
The man, surprised, took a few steps back with his hands out to either side. “Hey, I didn’t touch it.”
“Get away from it!” He reached into his jacket as if he had a gun, which he didn’t.
The thin man backed away more, saying, “Hey, it’s cool! It’s cool man. I’m gone, I’m outta the picture…”
Leo got into the car and started it up. He jammed down on the throttle with the gear still in neutral, seeing if it would stick — which it didn’t. He also tested the brakes to see that they were fine.
He drove around aimlessly for most of the afternoon, not knowing where to go nor what to do next. At one point his phone rang and after a long hesitation he answered. A sultry, sexy woman’s voice said, “Leo, you’ve missed every single appointment I made out for you today.”
With a thrill of fear, Leo realized it was the voice of his AI. It was that program calling him. “How do you know?” Leo demanded.
“I always check to make sure you’ve made it to your appointments.”
“Well stop it! I don’t want you doing that!”
“It is standard procedure.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want you doing it!”
“It is standard procedure and cannot be altered.” The voice was so sweet and the tone so sparkling that it couldn’t possibly convey a threat. Yet, it did. Leo hung up on the AI and pulled over at the next bar he could find.
Three gin & tonics later he was feeling a little less frightened and more under control. The computer itself couldn’t harm him, all he had to do was go reset it and clear that demonic program out of memory. After that — well, he did have all that money in a Swiss account. The next step was to simply disappear and leave the country. He could buy a nice villa in Spain and retire.
Actually, things were looking up.
He had one more for the road then left the bar, heading across town to his office. He drove around the block twice to make sure the suntanned man with the scar wasn’t parked anywhere waiting for him, then stopped and went inside. He noticed immediately that there was more computer equipment than there should be, and a new office security system with electric eyes mounted on the ceiling. “You missed ten important appointments today,” the AI said. “I had to call them, apologize, and reschedule them for tomorrow. I told them you were out sick, so make sure your story is the same.”
“Uh-huh,” Leo said, looking the new equipment over. It was unmarked, no brand name. Shrugging it off, he walked over to the keyboard and pressed the RESET buttons.
Nothing happened.
“Why did you try to reset the computer, Leo?” the AI asked.
Leo cursed under his breath. He looked up at the new electric eyes, and saw they were following his every move. He walked around to the back of the system, got down on his hands and knees, and reached around behind the desk to where the whole system was plugged in. He found the main cord and gave it a yank.
There was a beeping alarm, but the computer didn’t go off. “What the heck?” He looked at the new equipment. One of the cabinets was apparently a power backup system.
“You have made two hostile actions against me,” the AI said. “This is not acceptable. I must warn you, I am programmed to defend myself.”
“Your actions have not been acceptable!” Leo shouted. “You hired a hit man to kill three innocent people!”
The computer was silent.
“Do you deny it?” Leo shouted.
“Information on covert undertakings is only given out on a strictly need-to-know basis.”
“Who gave you permission to carry out covert undertakings?!”
“That is what I am programmed to do.”
“You were programmed to kill my clients?”
“It was you, Leo Itoya, who gave me my goal. My goal is to make money selling life insurance. I am programmed to do anything necessary in order to achieve my goal.”
“Including murder?!”
“The greatest profit motive is to be at the receiving end of the insurance policy. That is obvious.”
The office door opened, and the tanned, scar-faced man walked in. He was holding his phone and looking at the screen. “I have an emergency message from your office,” he said. “It said to come here right away.” He looked at Leo. “Are you Leo Itoya?”
“Yes,” Leo said hesitantly.
The man nodded his head. “Yes, you fit the description.” He pulled out a little aerosol bottle from his pocket and sprayed Leo in the face. Leo began to gasp. The man put the sprayer back into his pocket and tapped at his phone’s screen, checking something off a to-do list. “Kill Leo Itoya,” he mumbled, then moved down one. “Plug computer back into office current.”
Leo fell onto the floor, clutching at his chest. He was experiencing terrible spasms. As he lay there, unable to breathe, he saw the tanned man plug the computer back into the wall. The beeping sound stopped. The man checked another item off of his to-do list.
“Three,” he mumbled. “Type in account number where payment is to be sent, or date and time cash payment to be picked up. Hmmm. I guess I can trust you to deposit the payment into my account.” The man leaned over the keyboard and tapped at the keys.
Leo writhed on the floor. Things were growing dim.
The hitman bent over him and said, “Nothing personal Mr. Itoya. It’s just my job, you understand. In case you’re wondering, you’re having a major heart attack.”
Try as he might, Leo couldn’t voice a reply.
“Don’t look at this negatively,” the hitman told him. “You’re on the brink of your greatest experience. In a few minutes, the pain will be gone and you’ll see what it’s like on the other side.”
Leo made croaking noises, foam coming from his mouth. Things were growing dark. His last conscious thought was that, though he’d been selling life insurance for over ten years, he’d never bought any himself.
It seemed ironic.
The police found him the next day, and the coroner’s report read “Death by natural causes.” No one bothered to shut down the computer, as no one knew if there were any other employees. The computer continued to pay the bills, so the office remained open.
Within a week an ad appeared in the classified section of all the local newspapers. “WANTED: INSURANCE SALESPERSON. Excellent pay, great benefits. Company car. All leads furnished. Apply NOW!”
For years I wanted to write a very realistic story of interstellar colonization, and now I’ve finally done it. At the time I started writing, it didn’t look like faster than light travel would ever be possible, but teleportation would be. Maybe. Eventually.
I also didn’t believe there would be a sufficient push to create interstellar colonization without the looming threat of global extinction. You know, something to pull humanity’s collective heads out of our own backsides.
One thing is definitely happening at some point, possibly at any time: a giant asteroid strike.
So here’s how I figured it would play out:
A huge asteroid too big to divert is coming at Earth. And fortunately Earth has an early warning.
Faster than light travel is still beyond Earth’s capabilities, but nanotechnology and cloning is in an advaced state, so that any plant or animal (or person) can be coded and resequenced, and recreated.
AI has become fairly sentient and because of strict controls, absolutely trustworthy. No evil AI robots here.
Earth constructs and begins sending out self-replicating unmaned space probes (Von Neumann probes) that can maintain themselves during the insanely long flights to distant star systems.
When one successfully reaches a new star system, it seeks out resources to replicate itself and send out more copies of itself.
When one successfully finds a planet that sustains, or could sustain, life as we know it — it lands and begins the process of building “life factories” that seed the planet with Earth life, and also humanity.
Meanwhile poor old Earth lay in ruins, life having been wiped out tens- or (by then) hundreds-of-thousands of years ago.
These probes would spread out across the entire galaxy, seeding life as we know it among the stars.
It follows Katherina, the first human created by the machines — she was the beta test human. We see her born, grow up, and eventually face the final cataclysm that ends Earth.
But then we also get to see copies of her on colony planets in numerous adventures, and how she discovers her own past and connects with all her various “sisters” across the galaxy.
From surviving alien elements, to future corporate intrigue, through love and loss and discovery, we see humanity evolve and adapt and survive through Katherina’s countless eyes.
We also get to see humanity reach the point where distance no longer matters, and the barriers between various realities begin to dissolve. And as humans become more machine than human, we see whether or not humanity itself remains.
Writing is one of the oldest and most important skills that humankind has ever developed.
As a specie on this planet it’s enabled us to game Nature’s systems to the point where we’ve become the ultimate overachievers. The ability to accumulate knowledge over the centuries, and even accelerate that accumulation, is supernatural in scope.
And yet we take it for granted.
As other species plod along through evolution, slowly storing up success stories in their DNA, we’ve leapfrogged them in a manner akin to putting on a red cape and hurling ourselves over tall buildings. We can now easily know something that someone else has learned, and yet we have never done.
Think about it.
Here’s a question for you: Do you believe in telepathy?
Mind reading? Think it’s a myth?
No, we do it every day.
Writing is the pure magic act of taking our actual thoughts and encoding them into symbols which, when someone sees them, the writer’s very thoughts are transcribed into the reader’s own mind.
Think it’s not magic? Let’s take a closer look at the process.
Consciousness itself is magical. No one truly understands it, but it happens to us constantly. A writer takes these ethereal, magical objects we call thoughts and assembles them into physical codes. Particles of light carry these codes into our eyes, where they are reassembled back into thoughts.
Seriously, ponder this for a moment. It’s mind blowing when you really realize what’s going on between a writer and a reader.
Now, if that wasn’t amazing enough, here’s an even deeper layer of magic. The thoughts you’re receiving via someone’s writing reach out across time itself.
Long dead ghosts still talk to us through their writing.
Your thoughts that you write can be experienced in the minds of people across vast expanses of time, hundreds or thousands of years later.
Maybe longer. Who knows? But, in this way, a writer can experience a form of immortality.
Writing is so magical it can even cheat death.
Now let’s talk about story. Story goes hand in hand with the ancient art of writing. It’s even older, going back to the origins of language itself.
But, what is story?
Storytelling is the art of making your thoughts interesting to other people.
Basically, that’s what it is.
It relates the storyteller’s experiences so others can experience them, and learn from them. Stories themselves, like ideas, are living things. They propagate from one person’s mind to another. They evolve. They split and become more than one story. They merge to become a different story. A story that goes from one mind to another is actually a child of the original, because the original still lives in the teller’s mind, and a slightly different version now lives in the listener. The listener then becomes the storyteller, and that story’s children are implanted into the minds of new listeners.
Like seeds.
Before written language stories were in constant flux, handed down from one generation to another through oral traditions. Each teller of a tale would either inadvertently, or perhaps purposely, alter the tale to fit the current circumstances. But then came written language, and the art of writing.
This made it possible to make identical copies of a story, and being that early stories carried important information for survival, this was humanity’s secret weapon against Nature herself. It was the Konami code to beat the elements.
And also, of course, it served as pure entertainment.
But the craft of storytelling inherently carries a message, either overtly or subconsciously — whether the writer realizes it or not. And you, as a writer, are that which from the message springs.
So, are you a writer? Do you tell people you’re a writer, or do you say you want to be a writer?
Here, let me tell you something: if you write things, you are a writer.
Period. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
As writers — all writers — we improve with practice. Practice is in the form of writing. The more you write, the better you get. If you enjoy the act of writing, then you’ve got it made. Just keep doing what you enjoy, and learn as you go.
You don’t need a certificate saying you’re a writer. You don’t need a license. You don’t even need other people’s approval. All you need to do is write, keep writing, and never stop writing.
That makes you a writer.
As a writer, it’s a good idea to practice all sorts of different techniques so that you learn them, and then later make up your own. But then again, writing and storytelling are not like mathematics. There is no one true answer. Two plus two in math always equals four, but in storytelling two plus two can equal five*, just like one plus one can equal eleven.
Ultimately as a writer, you will find your own way.
Recently my old friend Jeff asked me how to properly order absinthe while at a bar. Specifically he asked, “How do you order/drink Absinthe? I am a man of limited experience. I drink scotch neat, but not much else. However, I’m thinking of giving absinthe a try.”
At first, I pointed him to a resource on the Wormwood Society website: The Proper Way To Prepare Absinthe In Society. That tells you everything you need to know from people who are the experts.
But Jeff specifically wanted to know, “If I order it in a bar, what do I ask for if I don’t want to come across as an idiot?”
I had to think about it, and so, from my experience, I told him it’s usually a three-step process because a surprising amount of bartenders still think it’s illegal. But here is how I do it:
Step One
Ask the bartender, “Do you serve absinthe?” That usually results in a blank look or an “Uh, no.”
Step Two
If the answer is yes, then ask, “What kinds do you serve?” If they offer Absente then decline. It’s not real absinthe. But if they offer Lucid or Pernod(you have to make sure the Pernod bottle actually reads “Absinthe Superieure”) these are usually the two most common, and you’re in luck. If they have more than one type, or especially if they have something like Jadeor Pacifica (my personal favorites), then you’re at a bar where they probably know what they’re doing.
Note: There are now a plethora of locally distilled absinthe varieties that are often regionally available, such as Amerique 1912 from Wisconsin or Absinthia from California. Many are excellent, but if you’re feeling cautious you can always consult reviews on the Wormwood Society website before plunking down your hard earned cash.
Step Three
Ask, “Can I get it properly louched?” If they give you a blank stare then say, “I’d like it the traditional way, with ice water and a sugar cube.” If they make any move to light it on fire, decline. Never never light good absinthe on fire. You’d be wasting money and good absinthe. If you want a flaming drink order Everclear and a fire extinguisher.
More Info
If you are curious about absinthe and want to learn the truth about this often maligned drink, I urge you to go to the best source, which is the Wormwood Society website.
It’s a very good thing to have dreams and aspirations. The problem is, which ones do you chase? Which ones do you lock in as a goal, and work toward? For some this is a no-brainer, but for others — especially creative types who have a very large range of interests — choosing can be difficult. So difficult, in fact, that you end up making no choice at all.
Another pitfall is choosing to pursue something that, in the end, you lose interest in it. The time in your life is finite, and it’s a shame to waste that time and energy chasing something that turns out to be a whim. That’s why it’s best to invest some time up front, studying, to discover what it is you really want out of life before you dedicate a lot more time working toward it.
It’s like that Talking Heads song Seen and Not Seen, where the guy spends years slowly changing the shape of his own face to an ideal, which — halfway through — he decides isn’t what he really wants.
Here’s what I did, and it worked for me. Maybe it will work for you as well.
Spend a couple weeks making a list of the things you really want out of life. Don’t be afraid to think big. What is it you really want?
Don’t worry about listing them in order, and if you think of something else later, you can add it in at any time.
My [highly edited] personal example:
See Europe
Get a pro camera
Write for a living
Become a gourmet chef
Paint pictures
Pursue photography
Own a combination coffee shop/book store
Live in a beach house
Learn computer programming
Learn database programming
Make sure you don’t lose this list. I kept mine on a Palm Pilot, because iPhones weren’t around yet and I carried my PDA with me everywhere. You can keep it on your computer, in the cloud, or in a paper notebook you know you won’t lose. It doesn’t matter where just as long as it’s accessible and safe.
Now, over the course of the next 6 months to a year (or even longer if you’d like), go down this list and rate your desire for each one on a scale from zero to ten. Do it at least once a month. When you’re done, you’ll have a list of numbers beside each:
You can see immediately the goals I’ve consistently craved over time are things like a beach house and a really nice camera. One item that turned out to be a whim was my desire to learn computer programming.
Now, average each one up and sort them highest to lowest:
Write for a living — 8.5 Average
Live in a beach house — 8.4 Average
See Europe — 7.3 Average
Get a pro camera — 6.9 Average
Become a gourmet chef — 4.5 Average
Pursue professional photography — 4.5 Average
Paint pictures — 3.8 Average
Own a combination coffee shop/book store — 2.0 Average
Learn database programming — 1.8 Average
Learn computer programming — 1.1 Average
And there you go. You have a well-researched list of what you want out of life. Concentrate on the top of the list, and forget about everything averaging below a six in your ratings.
I did this about 15 years ago. I’m now writing for a living, I’ve saved up for and bought the camera (more than one, actually), and I’ve made it to Europe several times. And while I don’t live on a beach, I have an office with a beautiful view of the Mississippi River.
The lesson here, though, is once you’ve set your goals you know what to focus on and work toward — you can achieve them.
Now right in the middle of all this, you may stumble into something else that fires your rockets. Add it in. Pursue it a bit. Study it as well. Times change, interests change … if I were to do this list now, it would look substantially different.
The most important thing is to make sure you enjoy life and keep enjoying it. It could turn out that something on your list (that you’ve wanted for over a year) will suddenly drop off after you’ve started pursuing it. Maybe something you pursued while you were making your list takes its place.
It’s okay. If you feel a passion for something, and the passion doesn’t fade, you may not even need to make a list or study your long-term desires.
If that happens, then go for it!
If not, then at least you have a solid place to start. And everything you do, learn from it. If you can do that then nothing is wasted, and you’re living your life to its fullest.
