The Writings of Michael Varian Daly
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Oct. 11th, 2008
12:07 pm - "Prelude on The Evening of a Harlequin" [unfinished]
~This is a novella I started a few years ago that has since stalled. It is only in the last few weeks that I realized why it did so.
Like almost everyone in this culture, I am an Individual, First and Foremost.
E pointed out that as I am functionally an Only Child [ten and half years older than the nearest sibling], largely grew up among adults, and lived in books and fantasy worlds for most of my childhood, I am even more an Individual than most.
But the society of these women is based upon The Trikona, the 'bond group' of three Sisters first made in childhood and replicated throughout all important relationships.
That is my challenge as a writer, to reset my mind and feelings toward the Trikona, to show how it permeates everything in their lives. And also how they are each still individuals while being so deeply bonded to their Sisters.
I finally realized that “Prelude” is based upon an Individualistic view of the world and therefore fails to truly represent this society, so I am setting it aside.
However, it does have a lot of good material to work with and, while it is now 'on the shelf', it has been an important laboratory in experimenting with this universe. ( So, here is what I had done with it so far... )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://www.commiejournal.com/img/moods/bobljkit/b2-thou.gif)
contemplative
Aug. 21st, 2008
09:02 am - “I await with great anticipation” she said
Nebs: “Oh, you are going to so get spanked!”
Savanna: “Did you say you're gonna spank me?
Well, I'm ready, 'cuz I've just unbuttoned my jeans and wiggled them past my hips, and down to my knees. Now grab me and place me over your lap, pull my sheer panties down, and start spanking my bare arched ass.” ;o)
( And that led to this... )
Aug. 8th, 2008
10:04 am - "Butcher and Float"
August 10th, 1881
In dawn's light, Her Imperial Majesty's Air Ship Kalima rose up over the snow capped granite mountains of Afghanistan's Safed Koh range. Glowing with a terrifying beauty, her pale gray orca shaped hull reflecting a reddish gold, the Kalima looked like Wrath Itself.
The reality was rather more prosaic. HIMAS Kalima's mission was simply to put the Fear of the Queen-Empress - once again - into the recalcitrant inhabitants of the Panjshir Valley, a scruffy lot of Tajik tribesmen who had a bad habit of raiding Her Imperial Majesty's border settlements on the other side of the Hindu Kush.
Back in 'the old days', this would have been done by a detachment of cavalry and horse artillery riding quickly through the Khyber Pass to shoot a few tribesmen and burn a few villages and then dash back, what was known as 'butcher and bolt'.
It had been a Rite of Passage for many a young subaltern. The Tajiks might be scruffy, but they were fierce and damn good shots.
With the introduction of Aeroships and the creation of the Imperial Naval Air Service, that process became cheaper, easier, and had nearly zero casualties – at least on the Imperial side - what one wag called 'butcher and float'.
The old Indian Army types bemoaned such 'luxury cruises' almost as much as the Royal Navy had bemoaned the creation of INAS. “Where are our young officers to get bloodied?” they cried.
“Taking service with one of our client Chinese warlords,” came the Official Answer, which was in fact a good reply. The border wars in Northwest China between proxy armies of the Anglo-American Imperium and the Russian Empire were a far more effective military training ground than occasionally shooting up the odd Tajik hovel and took place on a fairly regular basis.
So the INAS took over 'the trade' on the Northwest Frontier, plied by vessels like the Kalima.
HIMAS Kalima was a Durga class airfrigate, fourth of that class to be build by Westlander Aeronautics, LTD, of the Province of California, Grand Dominion of America. She was 383 feet long and was armed with four Mark IV 2 inch Ellis guns, six barred cannon driven by electric motors, mounted in gymboled turrets. She was manned by twelve officers and thirty eight crewmen.
Her bridge and crew quarters were in an armored gondola that was mostly recessed into the airframe. Fuel, ammunition, and stores were kept in central compartments.
She was powered by six Danning DTP-48 turboprop engines, each rated at 750hp, mounted on variable angle pylons, three to a side, and a Danning DIL-70 V-16 engine, 1800hp, powering a huge propeller in the tail. They all ran on a kerosene/peanut oil mix.
Kalima's frame was constructed of laminated wood, aluminum, and polymer composites and her hull covered with a interwoven canvas/Nylon sheath. Her lift came from six helium cells and was regulated by another four air cells with cooling and heating elements.
She was alone on this mission as it was only an Admonishment. If it had been a full scale Punishment, there would have been a half dozen aeroships and a large ground force. And the aeroships would have come at night without warning.
Coming at dawn let the locals know what was what and gave them time to evacuate their women, children, and livestock.
Commander Shamsher Szczepanski, Kalima's captain, had been up before first light, reclining in his bridgechair while sipping chai. His uniform was crisp and he was freshly shaved. This was his third Admonishment and he planned to do it by the numbers.
He was a perfect example of the creole professional military class of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy. His grandfather, Franciszek Szczepanski, had been a cavalry trooper serving the Polish Republic during the Franco-Iberian Revolutionary Wars and had fled the wreckage of Europe when they ended.
Being a Polish Catholic and former Republican military, he was not welcome in the Dominion of America. But the East India Company army saw him as a experienced, literate, professional soldier and gave him a job.
He changed his first name to Frederick, married the daughter of Sepoy, rose to the rank of general in the Imperial forces, and died in his own bed a wealthy man.
Shamsher Szczepanski's parents were themselves both mixed blood members of the Ascendancy and named him after the Hindi word for Jaguar. His father was still on active duty as an officer in the Imperial Indian Army and his mother an influential society matron.
Great things were expected of him and he had no intention of disappointing. This was not a glamorous job, but he did it well and without complaint. If nothing else, he was a Professional.
After an hour or so, the Anjuman Pass slipped below and soon the first village came into sight.
“Firing turn here, Mr Shannon,” he told the helmsman. “Aye aye, Captain,” replied the craggy faced Warrant Officer at the controls. Kalima slowly orbited the village. “Three standard bursts. Fire!”
The rapid “Throomp Throomp Throomp Throomp“ of the Ellis guns shook the ship. Below, the mudbrick buildings of the village disintegrated into a cloud of dust and smoke. In the silence that followed, the 'ting' of rifle shots could be heard striking the gondola's armor.
Szczepanski grinned. “Cheeky devils, aren't they,” he muttered to no one in particular. He pointed to the nearest hillside. “Mr. Shannon, steer a course for that bluff.”
Kalima swung around menacingly and approached the hillside. The rate of 'tinging' increased.
“Three crisscross bursts, standard pattern,” said Szczepanski. “Fire!”
Once again the rapid “Throomp Throomp Throomp Throomp“ of the Ellis guns shook the ship. The rain of two inch explosive shells tore up the brush and rocks of the hillside, scattering their ruined fragments every which way. In the silence that followed, there was no more 'tinging'.
“Very good, gentlemen,” he said, “On to the next.”
By one that afternoon, Kalima had 'admonished' four more villages.
Szczepanski turned to a tall man in mufti standing at the back of the bridge and grinned. “And that's how we do things up here on the Northwest Frontier, Mr. Pennington.”
“Damn fine show, Captain,” replied Snapper returning the grin.
“Mr. Shannon, take us home, if you please. I have to show Mr. Pennington here some of the more interesting sights of Peshawar.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Shannon said with a leer.
The Kalima turned majestically over the now smoke hazed Panjshir Valley. On the valley floor nothing moved; not until she had passed overhead.
And there would no more raids...not for a while, at least. Life had maintained a certain pattern on the Northwest Frontier for centuries that even Her Imperial Majesty's mighty aeroship fleets could not alter. Not yet, anyway.
Jul. 8th, 2008
08:50 am - "A Good Run While It Lasted"
Roegher was dying, which he did not think a tragedy. Everyone was dying one way or another. He was just dying a bit faster and, as he was The Last True Man, his impending death was 'special'.
He had actually been 'dying' for nearly a century and a half, starting right after The Prohibition when the augmentations that gave him longevity were turned off or dialed back. There had been much beating of breasts and rending of garments over that, but Roegher had not been a part of that nonsense.
He knew that The Time of True Men was over. The Rebellion of The Sons of Hercules had proved that to all but the most die hard Masculinists. He himself had lost a daughter and two grand daughters in that nightmare.
There had been seven centuries of peace before that. Yes, there were violent feuds between Cult Clans, but those were resolved with personal duels or, if need be, by Cavalry Wars; hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Sisters on horseback with sabers and lances upon an open plain.
Once the fighting was done – usually with few killed – both sides held a festival for the dead, sang, danced, got drunk, and had sex together...and the matter was settled.
But the Supermen of Ashkelon, engineered to be Perfect Men by one Cult of well meaning but misguided Sisters, proved to be too Perfect and founded a Masculinist Republic. After a century of conflict, a dozen worlds had been ravaged, Ashkelon was reduced to a slagheap, and the Sons were all dead, along with over twenty million others.
The Grand Council and Assembly of The Sisterhood declared The End of Men, a Prohibition, and no more True Men were to be born. Males in the womb would be allowed come to term, but most were aborted anyway. What was the point?
Some True Men protested or bemoaned their fate. Many simply committed suicide or downloaded into Mandroids.
Not that it mattered all that much. Even before The Prohibition, three quarters of all Full Humans - Mandroids were not counted - were Sisters, a steady trend for centuries. Why bring male children into a Matriarchy?
While all that raged around him, Roegher tended to his garden. The Soil was Mother no matter what sun shown in the sky.
Roegher had laughed at all the Masculine/Feminine 'balance of energy' debates. There were thousands of Mandroids for every Sister, all cyborgs based on Y-Chromosome DNA. “That balances out nicely,” he thought.
For a while he had been an advisor on Mandroid psychology and trained many Sisters in that field. He got along well with the simple minded Workers and the idiot savant Harlequins. The Sliders, the Sisterhood's living starships, unnerved him, their brilliant minds like sharp cold steel. But he lived most his life dirtside, so no matter.
He had however visited Gaea one last time before it was encased in a Temporal Variance Sphere to be healed. That was a cherished event.
Now, as his life wound down to its end, he was content. His four life mates had borne two dozen daughters by him and there were many, many more grand, and great grand, daughters. They came to visit him, some out of love, some out of curiosity. But they were all kind and gentle with him and many would be there when he passed.
Plus The Priestesses of Eriskigal had assured him that his next Reincarnation was as a Sister. All things considered, Roegher knew he had nothing to complain about and planed to go out smiling....as befitted The Last True Man.
© 2008 Michael Varian Daly
08:48 am - “Tea Time in Panjim”
It was a lovely day, temperate with a breeze, perfect for sitting on the patio for afternoon tea at the quite fashionable Cafe Inez. One could watch Panjim's harbor with its cluster of maritime and air ships, the traffic going around Imperial Circle, then up and down Empress Boulevard, a mixture of stately carriages and up scale delivery vehicles.
The ox and donkey carts, along with the heavy motor vans from the harbor, were restricted by law to travel along Shoreline Quay to the north and west.
Snapper sipped his Lapsang Oolong and studied his fellow patrons. Like him, the men were all wearing nearly identical white linen suits, though they also wore wide brimmed white hats, colorful ties, and were freshly shaved.
Snapper absent absentmindedly rubbed a days worth of stubble.
The women wore various types of diaphanous calve length flower patterned sun dresses, restrained jewelry, and large sun hats, usually with brightly colored bands.
The patio was filled with chatting, smiles, and polite laughter.
Cafe Inez was very popular with the upper middle portion of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy, the 'prime managers' of the Imperium who numbered about three million out of the Ascendancy's twenty plus million. They tended to be of more European blood than Indian, but, like the rest of this polyglot creole class, were all firmly Imperialist and largely Tamist, worshipers of the Nine Fold Tara, the Goddess directly inspired by the Queen-Empress herself.
For decades, Goa, and its capital, Panjim, had been a backwater. It had been purchased by the British Crown during the darkest days of the Franco-Iberian Revolutionary Wars, along with the rest of Portugal's overseas empire. Except for Brazil, of course. The Braganza's needed somewhere to hang their crown while their homeland was being occupied.
As the Imperium's fortunes lay mostly upon India's eastern coast, Goa languished. But in the 1840's, being the personal property of the British monarch, it was the perfect place for the Queen-Empress to initiate her Imperial Citizenship project. From then on, it flourished.
Because of that, in the nearly three and half decades since, it had become – in Snapper's opinion – one of the most civilized places on earth. That also made it a prime target for the operations of the SIR, the Sluzhba Inostrannoi Razvedki, Czar Michael's Foreign Secret Service.
That was why Snapper was here having High Tea at the Cafe Inez, besides the fact that he liked the place. He was mixing business with pleasure today.
Snapper's full name and title was William Frederick Dudley Pennington, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy Reserve. Most called him Freddy. Only a very few called him Snapper. For those who paid attention, one could see that he was a dangerous man, though he played at being 'a gentleman of leisure' quite well. His official, but 'non-existent', job was, as he had once said with a smile, “doing unpleasant things to unpleasant people.”
He casually perused his copy of the Goa Morning Times while keeping an eye on a handsome, ruddy faced man with a close cropped reddish-blonde beard. He spoke with soft affection to a dusky young creole beauty who gazed at him with adoration.
The chap called himself Tadeusz Biezanko and was officially from Silesia, a state of the Germanic Confederation, the Imperium's main European ally. But Snapper knew he was an SIR operative named Vladamir Borisenko and that he ran a blackmail operation.
Much was publicly allowed in the Ascendancy; mistresses, drug and alcohol addition, even discrete homosexuality. But pedophilia and incest were 'simply not done', although the former was endemic. Child sex trafficking was wide spread. The security services spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the mess.
Biezanko's front was lumber exporting, fine and exotic woods to be exact. But he funded at least three child sex rings that Snapper's 'employers' knew of. Ordinary clients were generally blackmailed only for money and then not too harshly. But they had snared a few Big Fish and those they were extorting for political purposes.
At the moment, Biezanko was here on his honeymoon, the young woman his bride, the daughter of a wealthy, socially ambitious Bombay merchant who saw Biezanko as a way to move some grand children up the ladder.
Snapper was here to kill him. “Too bad,” he thought, “They might actually be in love.”
Snapper looked across Empress Boulevard at the image of the only woman to whom he had ever been faithful.
The statue of Queen Alexandra as Boadicea was ubiquitous. There were easily three hundred of them in various locations throughout the Imperium. The one in Panjim's Imperial Circle was typical, polished bronze and three times life size.
Originally done by the emigre' genius Berney when she was in her twenties, it depicted her as the legendary Celtic warrior queen, standing upright in a war chariot drawn by four fierce steeds, her hair streaming in the wind from under an Imperial diadem . She wore an armored girdle around her midriff over a fur tunic, with a double headed axe hung from a wide belt strapped upon her hips. With her left hand, she held a trident up high. With her right, she grasped the horses reins. Her expression was exultant.
Around the pedestal in large letters it read; “Alexandra Queen of Great Britain Scotland and Ireland Regnant Lord Protector of The Grand Dominion of America Empress of India Africa Asia and Oceania”. She did have over two hundred other titles, but it was those three affirmed her as the acknowledged ruler of half the world's population and a third of its landmass.
If you came here at dawn, you could see devotees of the Nine Fold Tara clamber up onto the statue to place flower garlands around her neck and on both arms. They removed the wilted garlands from the previous day and tied on fresh ones. This happened every day without fail, even during Monsoon, when silk flowers were used.
Some of the devotees were Very Important People, but out there, upon the bronze body of Her Earthly Manifestation, princes and beggars were equal. Snapper had done it a few times himself, for reasons he was not really sure of and did not care to examine. He was wearing a red Tam pinned to his lapel, symbol of The Red Tara, Her Warrior Aspect that also brought good fortune.
The statue's ample cleavage and long bare legs had scandalized 'proper' society when it was first unveiled a quarter of century ago. But the people loved this frankly sexual representation of their queen in all of her youthful beauty. It shouted Power and Fecundity.
Snapper didn't think it did her justice. Even in her late fifties, she was still an alluring Amazonian figure and truly a great monarch, as well. She had personally sat in on two of Snapper's debriefings after especially delicate missions. She kept a close watch upon her domains and used her servants well.
It was said that Czar Michael had been madly in love with her and when she rejected his offer of marriage after the death of Prince Hedrick, his loved turned to hate. But then his timing had been hideous. Alexandra had been deeply in love with the Prince Consort and his body was not even cold when the Czar has made his proposal. And at Hedrick's state funeral, no less.
The Russian Empire and the Anglo-American Imperium had been rivals before – it was only natural – but after that, the rivalry took on the aspects of a blood feud. That circumstance had been the impetus to create the 'non-existent' government bureau that now employed Snapper in his 'non-existent' job.
In those regions where their respective spheres of influence overlapped, Central Asia and the northern Far East, an endless series of vicious little proxy wars ebbed and flowed. Many believed that an open full scale global war was only a matter of time.
However, until then, the two empires dueled in the shadows.
Tea time was getting close to its crescendo, the combination of sugar, caffeine, and good company. While still seeming to read his newspaper, Snapper gently grasped the elegant walking stick that leaned against his chair. He raised the tip, pressed a small pip, and an internal spring mechanism made a soft 'ting' that was lost in the ambient noise.
A soluble resin dart with a ricin core pierced Biezanko's Achilles tendon. He yelped and knocked over his teacup. Only a half dozen people noticed. He looked around, his face calm, but his eyes full of fear. He knew he was dead. He glanced at Snapper for a second, then seemed to dismiss him.
Pulling several bills from his wallet, Biezanko tossed them on the table and dragged his bewildered bride off the patio. Many more noticed that and whispered comments.
He'd be in a coma in a few hours and be dead in a few days. But Snapper suspected he would make time to contact his handlers and let them know he'd been murdered in broad daylight during High Tea on the patio of the Cafe Inez. That would send a message to St. Petersburg on several levels.
Satisfied that the Imperium was just a bit safer than it had been a moment before, Snapper poured himself some more Lapsang Oolong and turned to the sports page for the baseball scores. One of his favorite teams, the Hyderabad Pearls, was having a damn fine season.
© 2008 Michael Varian Daly
08:46 am - "Small Unit Action"
Tzisoc knew they were about fifteen miles south of Zhytomir, but until they saw the rail line and the village just to the east – Vertokyivka she believed – they had no map fix.
Artillery 'crumped' to the north, fellow Black Guard units fighting their way into Zhytomir itself.
She brought the troop to a halt in the village's abandoned fields, letting the horses graze upon whatever they could find. In the dry heat of mid-August, that wasn't much. She was still amazed at the stunning primitiveness of Russia during this time, even this far west.
She sighed, checked out her little command; twenty six Sisters, their horses, three extra mounts.
“Too many First Timers in this Wave”, she thought. She had gone from private to sergeant in five months because of that. That was also why they didn't spot the Maxim gun until it opened up, a languorous 'tat-tat-tat-tat'.
They had learned enough to pull back rapidly instead of gazing about open mouthed. The Germans missed completely.
“Green,” Tzisoc hissed, as she dismounted several yards back.
“Corporal Kaminel, take Second and Third Sections around to the right! Pin them down!” she told her second in command. “First Section come with me!”
As Tzisoc and seven troopers moved around to the left, the sharp crack of Mosin-Nagant carbines could be heard, answered by the Maxim gun...and the flatter crack of Mausers.
“They've got infantry,” Tzisoc said. The others nodded.
They found a low rise on the German's left flank. Tzisoc spread her troopers along it and kept moving left.
She could see the Germans now, their coal scuttle helmets moving around in a trench line. She brought her rifle up, fired.
One of the helmets flipped back with a satisfying spray of blood and meat.
She hugged the earth as slugs zipped over head, thumped in the dirt. Then First Section opened up and the bullets stopped. She took a quick look; no Germans.
She was up and running in an instant. “This is going to get me killed,” she thought. But she had signed up knowing The Black Guard's motto; Mors Amatricum Nostrum. “Death is Our Lover”
Halfway to the trench a German appeared. She shot him in the chest.
Then she was in the trench. Another German. She shot him in the face. A third German came at her with a shovel, knocked her rifle away.
She screamed a war cry, leaped upon him, dagger out. She could feel the bone and gristle through the hilt, feel his death rattle, smell his bowels voiding.
She heard a 'thunk' to her left. The chest-shot German had just pounded a potato masher against the dirt.
“Oh, shi...” The blast set her hair and uniform on fire. Metal tore into her face, eyes... PAIN!
...whiteness...
Her body was still spasming violently when the Mandroid Medtechs cracked the Sim Tank. A Pneumodermic injector shot her full of hormones and supplements. She went limp.
She awoke in a deceptively simple hospital room, bright, sunny, no medgear visible, but it monitored her to the subatomic level.
A Sister came in wearing a white coat, her hair in a Service Pageboy. Tzisoc noticed the silver outlined black star insignia of The Black Guard pinned to her coat.
“I'm Nesrood, your counselor,” she smiled. “I hear you bought the farm.”
Tzisoc laughed. “Only five months in.”
“You'll do better next time,” Nesrood said. She pointed to her insignia; the black star had a red III and a white V. “I died the first two times.”
She pulled a clear package out of her pocket, handed it to Tzisoc. “Welcome.”
It was a Black Guard pin. When Tzisoc's skin touched it, a red I appeared. She grinned with sheer joy. “Yes, I'll do better next time.”
© 2008 Michael Varian Daly
Nov. 21st, 2007
12:37 am - "The Moon Is Red"
Doctor Hipolito Rodriguez sat on the balcony of his Quito apartment looking up at El Tallo. He ate chicken in a mole' sauce with saffron rice and a fine Sonoma Cabernet. It was only an hour or so after dusk, so El Tallo still glowed with reflected over the horizon sunlight, a shimmering beam straight up into the night sky.
He gazed with bittersweetness upon what his late wife had called 'the great love of his life'. Doctor Rodriguez was a PhD in both structural engineering and materials science. And The Quito Space Elevator – El Tallo (The Stalk) – had been the focus of his dreams since he was a teenager in East LA's Boyle Heights over a half century ago.
His parents, a bus driver and a math teacher, had supported that dream, as had the entire neighborhood. El Tallo was the stated goal of the newly formed AEPA – la Agencia Espacial Pan Americo. In the exciting and chaotic aftermath of La Separación – the referendum that swept California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas out of the collapsing United States of America and back into an economically resurgent Estados Unidos de Mexico – Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico had formed AEPA as a way of uniting Latin America and pulling it into the future.
And it worked beyond their wildest dreams. Finally freed of their fear of the Norte Americanos, tens of millions of campesinos looked up at La Luna and thought, “She could be ours.” Hipolito had felt that too back in those heady days when he had gone from being a Mexican-American to an American Mexican. La Raza had reclaimed Azlan! Now Los Gabachos could 'suck it'.
Anything seemed possible in those days. The president of Mexico had solved the drug problem by legalizing everything and nationalizing production. The power of the gangs and cartels faded quickly and corruption was weeded out. The power of El Tallo was like a magic wand that transformed all obstacles into opportunities.
Quito was the obvious site for El Tallo. It was on the equator and over nine thousand feet above sea level. Ecuador became the fifth member of AEPA, followed rapidly by every other Latin American nation. No one wanted to get left behind.
The new project got a boost as tens of thousands of scientists and technicians, Hispanic and not, fled the United States to escape the violence of racial and religious civil war. This was hastened by a nuclear war in the Middle East that seemed to paralyze the US Federal government, tripled Latin American petroleum prices, and led the Europeans to sell their share of the International Space Station to AEPA.
Hipolito was working on his first Masters – structural engineering – in Shanghai when that agreement was made. Everyone, Latino and Chinese students alike, went out to get roaring drunk that night in celebration. The city even had an impromptu fireworks display.
The Cubans had brought in the Chinese. AEPA needed the extra funds and technical expertise. The Chinese needed a place to build a space elevator. The three other locations were at best problematic.
Indonesia was a hotbed of Jihadism which had become even more insane and desperate after the destruction of Mecca in an Israeli nuclear strike. Plus global warming was creating larger and stronger typhoons which battered all of South East Asia. Not a good location for a space elevator.
In the wake of worldwide economic instability, Central Africa was basically abandoned and had dissolved into a brutal round of tribal and religious warfare. The climate was stable, but the security concerns were insurmountable.
Brazil had wide equatorial plains that would provide plenty of room to build, but again, global warming had ruled that out. The terrible storms that brewed in the Atlantic were predicted to move further and further inland for the next several decades.
That left Quito.
Los Chinos were immensely helpful. Hipolito's two Masters and one of his Ph D's were earned at Chinese universities. Even the second PhD, from the University of Quito, was done mostly under the tutelage of Chinese instructors who had transplanted to Ecuador for that very purpose.
The project went ahead with great speed. Thirty seven years from Statement to Completion. There was rejoicing from San Fransisco to Terra Del Fuego for over a year after El Tallo began to operate. But while everyone had their eyes upon the sky, things had changed upon the ground.
With their economies booming and education free for all, the sons and daughters of Latin America's rural and urban poor had moved up into the middle class. With that came a labor shortage. To relieve it, the doors were opened to the rural poor of China's Ten Thousand Villages. They came in their millions and tens of millions.
Today, less than two decades after El Tallo's completion, over seventy percent of Ecuador's population was Los Chinos. Quito and Guayaquil now had more signs in Chinese than in Spanish. Nearly forty percent of Mexico was Los Chinos and the rest of Latin America averaged ten to twenty percent.
Cuba and Brazil were being ruined by the Atlantic storms, so were in no position to resist. Venezuela has faded into Mexico's shadow as oil became less and less important. Anyway, the government elites were half Chino themselves and quite content with their lot.
Hipolito didn't hate Los Chinos. They had been his teachers, friends, and colleagues for most of his life. His two sons-in-law were Chinese and his half dozen grandchildren... He sighed. He even spoke Mandarin better than he spoke Spanish, English being his first language.
But he wanted his own nation and culture. So many years struggling to throw off the Yankees and they had merely replace one yoke with another and one far more alien.
The final blow had been the Mainland 'negotiating' a sale of El Tallo by AEPA to a Chinese controlled consortium. Many Latinos had become angry about the Chinofiquismo of, well, everything. A protest movement had begun, Los Contra Chinos. It was countered by a pro-Chinos movement, which was very well funded. There were violent street battles. Laws were passed declaring 'anti-Asian agitation' as 'terrorism'.
That was when Hipolito had finally started to protest publicly. Soon after, he was visited by security agents. “Think of your family,” they said in soft tones and left him a small black pill.
That had been a week ago. He had spent time with his daughters and grandchildren, visited old friends, organized his affairs. This world had actually been his for an entire lifetime, which was more than his 'illegal' grandparents could have said.
The moon had come up over the mountains, a blood moon. “How brutally poetic,” he thought.
“Ozymandias!” he toasted and washed down the black pill with the dregs of the Cabernet.
© Michael Varian Daly 2007
Oct. 5th, 2007
06:33 pm - "Crossing The Lines" [revised]
Jul. 5th, 2007 at 10:20 PM
~Dawn's light angled off the blank brick walls of the narrow alley. The air shimmered, then expanded like a large soap bubble and softly popped. Iyo stood there for a moment to orientate herself. She glanced up and around. No windows. Bioforms reading only insects and the odd rodent.
“Clear,” she said to no one in particular.
She was flying solo. It would have been nice to have her old unit along, but explaining away a squad of heavily armed Shan dog troopers, five foot canine humanoids, or Corporal Jax, a three quarter ton Marine cyborg, well, the locals might get nervous.
So, Iyo stood in this alley alone, a tall blonde in jeans and a leather jacket. The air reeked of hydrocarbons and decay. The nanites in her lungs and blood were already working hard to offset their effects.
“You'll get used to it,” she thought, like the dank, moldy air in the catacombs of that scathole Trobathney back...”or forward?” she mused. Transtemporal/Paratemporal operations were still new enough to have not worked out the tenses of their grammatic descriptors.
“Your cover is Camilla Göteborg. You're a model from Sweden,” her Case Officer said. “Remember, this line is swarming with unmodified males. Refrain from killing them unless you have absolutely no choice.”
Iyo knew all that from the compressed immersion Vert. This was just her Real Time cover activation. She also knew she was picked because she looked more like the locals than her mostly dark and therefor potentially 'exotic' Sisters.
Not mentioned in the Vert briefing was the underlaying reason for this mission. The tactical rationals were addressed in detail. The strategic concepts were clear. The socio-cultural purposes were left unspoken.
Iyo knew them, however. She was only one of hundreds of millions of Sisters who had been born into, and had grown up to fight, The War. It was always there, generation after generation. Once, The Enemy had threatened The Sisterhood with extinction. Now, Victory was almost assured and The War was slowly winding down.
What to do with all these battle hardened warriors?
Retrain them in covert operations and ship them out across all of Creation was the plan The Elders of The Sisterhood devised. Iyo actually thought that a good idea. She knew she'd get into mischief in peacetime and the necessities of 'blending in' would help her readjust to non-martial society.
Thus, she found herself in place called Brooklyn.
“Okay, enough woolgathering,” she said using local colloquialisms.
She strode out of the alley, though quaint asphalt and concrete streets, to a promenade overlooking the city's harbor. The water smelled even worse than the air, but the skyline of the tightly packed urban island across that water held a chaotic beauty.
She knew one of the two ugly boxlike towers that dominated that skyline would be destroyed in the Father/God wars that plagued this period. But that was nearly two decades...'up the line'. Maybe.
“Things change,” she murmured.
06:30 pm - "Lives" [expanded version]
Jun. 15th, 2007 at 7:40 AM
~Paln gently cupped the small green vegetable in the attachment designed for its harvesting, a shiny segmented orb. The steel orb closed – a soft 'snick' - cutting the stem. Paln carefully placed the hard round vegetable among its brethren in the bin strapped to his midsection...and felt Pleasure.
“Brussels sprout,” he sub-vocalized. He knew what they were and the perfect conditions for growing them, but he would never eat one and had no concept of what a 'brussles' was, nor cared. His 'cousins' up at The House would know of such things, and how to cook a Brussels sprout in a dozen or more different ways, and what each the ways would taste like. His 'cousins' with their brightly colored Masques, slim bodies, soft voices.
But they were House and he was Field. 'The House' was actually a complex of buildings and on the same level as the surrounding fields. It was always 'up', however, in the view of The Field.
His universe once again contracted, focused totally upon the next small green vegetable. Cupping. 'Snick'. Bin... and Pleasure.
Internal sensors told him the bin was At Capacity, though Paln knew that already. That made him feel Satisfaction. He stopped harvesting, smelling the rich loam of the field. He could analyze the chemical components to the millionth part, but organic senses came first.
Paln was the perfect blend of the organic and the cybernetic. He looked around at his Pod Brothers and felt Connection. They were all Type 26 General Purpose Agricultural Mandriods. He was officially PLN-161697434, but the Mother/Master/Ruler who hatched his brood from the uterine replicator had called him Paln, his first moment of Pleasure.
He put the full bin on the field cart, retrieved an empty one. He was still human enough to sense the beauty of the day. The sun. The fields. The easy sloshing of the nutrient tank on his Feeder nozzle. The quiet hum of the vaporizer on his Bleeder nozzle. His Brothers harvesting. The grace of the dark skinned, yellow eyed, Mother/ Master/Ruler upon her horse, overseeing their work. The Fear/Awe of seeing her shambok, long hard leather hanging lazily from her saddle horn, the Symbol of Overseeing.
Tonight, when Paln was reclining in his cradle, the Bleeder-Feeder tubes hooked up, toxins draining, body healing, he would dream of the day, sun, fields, smells, sounds.
He would also dream of Selt, who had been the eldest when Paln first arrived at this field from Training, a father figure to beings who did not know what a father was, but could feel the concept. Selt expired quietly one day after placing a full bin upon the field cart, just stopped and slumped against it.
The yellow eyed Mother/Master/Ruler had ridden up and dismounted almost before the rest of the Pod had noticed what had happened. She had two Brothers lay Selt down. He did weigh over four hundred pounds. She examined him in several places, then closed his eyes with her hand, one at a time as each eye was almost as big as her hand.
She then looked at the Pod with a strange expression.
“Selt's time is over,” she said softly and Paln felt Love and Awe. She knew Selt's name. “Go back to work now. Tonight we will say good bye to him.”
Paln would dream of Selt's funeral, too. The Pod gathered at dusk. Selt's body resting on the field cart. Mother/ Master/Rulers down from The House, bearing torches. The yellow eyed one anointing Selt's forehead with oil. The prayers as the black bag was...
Niniskil sat up with a start, breathless and sweaty. That chingado dream again! She glanced around to find her Sisters, saw Rhea on one side, Tzisoc on the other, both still out cold. It had been a serious Bacchanal.
She quickly looked between her legs, sighed with relief. At least she had detached the bioform phallus before she passed out. She crawled out of the bed between her Sisters, who still slept like the dead, and padded to the bathroom on the balls of her feet. Even half blasted and groggy, the old hunting skills were sharp.
There was plenty of sunlight coming in through the window, so the place monitor left the bathroom lights off. But the bidet rose up to meet Niniskil as she entered. She smiled at the obscene decadence of the thing as she mounted it like a saddle, resting her shins and knees into the long 'stirrups' that formed under them, and her ass against the semi-seat that actively cupped her upper cheeks.
A stream of pee hissed out of her, hot and tart smelling. The nanites in her body were busy scrubbing her blood and tissues, cleaning out the cocktail of chemicals from last night. Pineal ticklers. Testosterone spikers. Endorphin surgers. The traditional Tongue and Finger shore leave for the junior officers of the Survey Service after a long deep space patrol.
She stretched and yawned as she finished peeing. The bidet sprayed a light warm mist on her yoni's bare lips. She was no 'wire in the teeth' fetishist. She pulled a cloth square from the nearest dispenser, wiped herself, tossed it on the floor. Some tiny server would emerge and grab it once she had left the room.
Back in the main suite, she placed a glass under the water dispenser.
“Six ounces. Seventy two degrees.” Niniskil automatically maintained some spacer discipline even in a fleshpot like this. As she drank, she pulled apart some of the window's slated shades and looked outside.
The gorgeous vista of Sylph looked back at her as if designed to be perfect, which, of course, it was, from its core outward. Nothing, but jeweled archipelagos strung across warm azure seas without predators, skies painted with wispy clouds, all under the multicolored rings that crowned this princess of worlds.
A few yards away, just up from the white beach, a group of Sisters rested upon loungers in glistening nakedness, while a Harlequin, a pleasure server, offered them cold drinks. A type of 'House cousin', Niniskil thought, a bright red and gold Masque, lean ebony body, and under those tight trunks, a long, hard...
She let the slates close, the light suddenly like daggers in her skull.
“Ugh!” she grunted. That was definitely a Past Life dream. Too much detail...that yellow eyed Sister!
“Chingos!” she spat. What Sister wants to remember an Incarnation as an agrodriod? But there is was. Time to see the Priestesses of Eriskegal for Regression Therapy. Soon, but not today. She finished her water and crawled back into bed.
“The Wheel Turns,” she muttered and snuggled close to Rhea. Before drifting off, she thought, “Be extra nice to the servants today.”
06:29 pm - "The Last One"
Jul. 19th, 2007 at 9:09 AM
~The woods went dead still. Carmichael did a breathing pattern to slow his pulse, keep his temperature down, not overtax his battle suit.
He had a moment of peace a few dozen heartbeats back, laying upon moss, visor open, taking in bird songs, sunbeams through leaves, fresh air. Now, sealed up, all he could smell was fear.
The Bible in his pack was a comforting weight. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...” he mentally recited. Waking into this nightmare to find his cancer cured, but the world upside down, God had been his Bulwark. Carmichael had smiled at the rulers, scrounged gear from the ruins, then disappeared into the hills, leaving that Hell Spawn behind.
But he didn't understand what was happening right now. He'd lived peacefully in the hill country for decades after The Prohibition. There had been resistance at first, but that was easily crushed. He had withdrawn, not ventured far, hunted and gathered, been off their radar forever. Why the sudden hunt? It's not like he was going to breed. He hadn't even seen another human in four, maybe five years.
He did a thermal scan. Three large masses registered.
“Shit!” he thought, “Military cyborgs, gotta be a half ton each.” He powered up his pulse laser to maximum, armed three seeker drones, set coordinates, prepared to fire. He didn't notice the cyborged mosquito hovering right behind his helmet.
“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me...” The air turned bright blue, his muscles turned to water. Blackness...
The Darkness faded. He was strapped to a Med palate. Two tall women looked down at him. “Aztec priestesses in SS uniforms,” he thought fuzzily.
“Who is this one?” asked the woman with the yellow catlike eyes.
“Carmichael, Thomas Francis. Came out of Cryo only three decades before The Prohibition. Pre-Collapse ex-military,” said her XO.
His eyes were hard with Fear and Hate.
“Oh, you're a scared little bunny, aren't you?” Cat Eyes cooed, kneeling next to him. “This will make you feel better.” Something cool against his neck. A soft 'chuff'...and microfine tendrils sped into his cerebral cortex. Warmth and happiness overwhelmed him. But a hard core resisted.
“Why?” he croaked.
“You males left a lot of shit behind,” Cat Eyes said, “Mother is riddled with pernicious hydrocarbons and radioactive isotopes. We're going to seal Her up and give Her a good scrubbing. So everyone has to go.” She smiled. “Especially pingititos like you.”
The core melted. “Okay,” he burbled happily. The Med palate floated him toward the orbital transport parked in a clearing.
“He might be useful as a historical archivist,” Cat Eyes mused, then turned to her XO. “Any more in this sector?”
“No, thank Goddess. He was the last one.”
Sep. 25th, 2007
05:49 pm - Janeing in The Slums of Bessport
I just did a 'polish' on this piece and upped the word count from 449 to 495.
The musky odor hit Tanith the moment she stepped through the portal; man smell. It always got her queasy and excited, made her yoni tingle and moisten.
She marched with purpose down the wide debris strewn avenues, lined with derelict warehouses converted into rat warrens of cubicles called 'apartment' or 'club' depending upon their usage, the huge facades covered with brightly colored artwork, its techniques crude to sublime, and often violent and sexual in nature.
This was Semefour, a sector of the abandoned dirtside space facility of Bessport and original ghetto of The Men.
The Men were not actual males. True Men were extinct, outlawed for centuries, their heritage diffused and divided into the myriad Mandroids; Y-chromosome cyborgs, a vast genetically engineered servitor class that ranged from the ubiquitous simple minded AgroDroids, patiently tilling fields on a thousand worlds, through the slim graceful Harlequins, serving the personal needs of Sisters everywhere, to the brilliant star spanning Sliders, The Sister- hood's living spaceships who merged with their pilots, Mind, Body and Soul.
No, The Men were really Sisters. They wore Bitch Rods all the time – detachable bioform phallus's...big, thick ones, too. They took hormones to shrink breasts and grow hair, lots of hair. They lived The Man's Way, a throwback cult of 'masculinity'. They steeped themselves in intoxicants, wrote nihilistic poetry, had bare knuckle brawls, and sodomized each other. They were The Men.
For most, it was a phase. They would Live The Life for a while, then put their Bitch Rod back in its Fake Box and go live as a Solitary in the woods or the hills or the desert on some world for a Solannum or two until their minds and bodies settled.
But some Lived The Life as their Life with total commitment. Like Frank, who had been one of The Men for well over a century now. That is who Tanith had come to see.
Tanith was a Jane, a Sister who sought out The Men for pleasure. She couldn't call Frank a 'lover'. Sex among The Men was ritualized consensual rape.
She turned, went into a shadowed door, up narrow stairs. Frank was waiting for her, 'his' wiry black hair, beard, chest, legs, making her body vibrate with an atavistic thrill. Frank took her straight away, brutally, with a cruel smile that no Harlequin pleasure server would ever match.
Time passed too quickly.
They smoked and drank, coupled with fury and languor. Frank sang her songs. Two friends came over, got drunk, had a fist fight, then all three of them 'raped' her for hours.
On the afternoon of the third day, Tanith stumbled down the stairs, bruised, sore, and wholly sated. On her way out the door, Frank had smacked her on the ass. “Say hello to your husband,” 'he' laughed.
“My husband,” she thought smiling. Her darling Maddox, thirty six thousand tons of Slider floating serenely in orbit. She knew he would relish every single detail.
New Edit @ 6:38am 11/20/07
03:52 pm - Support Mental Health Or I’ll Kill You
Nov. 23rd, 2005 at 3:47 PM
Here
In The Big City
In This Modern World
Is any one not fucking nuts?
I ain’t talking about the Tasaday*
Deep in the Philippine jungles
Tho I’ll bet they’re contaminated too
But about Us
Me and You and the folks on the bus
Or in traffic…
Look…
The car to your right
Yeah, look around
Watch the body language
The expressions, the eyes, the little tics…
Listen to the endless phone calls
Go sit in The Promenade
Ignore the homeless
Everyone else does
Their madness is plain
No, watch The Normies
That madness is below the surface
But only just…
So,
Go ahead
Look around
Really look
But only if you dare
Only if you’re very strong
But let me leave first
Because you might start screaming
And I don’t want to hear it…
I’ve got problems of my own
*The Tasaday
03:50 pm - well, just fuck me...
Nov. 17th, 2004 at 3:11 PM
..written 11/14/04 @ The Barracks..
I'm drowning in a cesspool
of banality
boxed into a cycle of of survival
no joy
no inspiration
numb
I make the same food
day in
day out
on budget
I obsess over paperwork..
..housing that recedes
..criteria for the system
I dine with drooling
shit encrusted retards
who talk in Capital Letters
and then shut their mouths
when the satellite goes overhead
I watch crime TV endlessly
ligature marks
blunt force trauma
depraved indifference
I escaped one hell
for another
I want to lay down
and die...
or maybe
let me overdose
on Viagra and Extasy
with some Mexican
pre-op transsexual
crack whore
sucking my cock
until I shoot a
hot thick load
down shim's throat
and like a Samurai
rip open my belly
with cold bright steel
staining bleached blonde hair
in a shower of blood
and strangling shim with
my steaming intestines
Hollywood Robbery/Homicide
would chalk our bodies
sprawled together upon
the broken gum blackened concrete
sneering at how they'd
'seen this all before'
03:48 pm - Hard
Jul. 22nd, 2004 at 5:49 PM
..written on 7/21..
back at the Thrifty Wash
doing the coloreds
eating my sack lunch
from the Hamster Farm
they closed early today
browned bagged us and
pushed us out the door
a homeless old lady
half in her bag
asks me for a quarter
as I eat my turkey sandwich
with cheese..and a bag of chips
'No' I say
without a moments hesitation
there is plenty of food
if you know where to look
and she's no amateur
she's got a big cardboard sign:
'homeless grandma..please help'
she gets a five spot
from some schmuck in a Mercedes
and goes into the faux 7/11
to get herself a six-pack
I want to smack her
'get sober, bitch', I mutter
and my house mate is dying
the price of his own
drinking and using
I stay sober
and I do what it takes
sure..I piss and moan
but I keep putting one foot
in front of the other
while I extend a hand back
I'll give you a Hand Up
but if all you want
is a hand out..
well, baby, I'll step over
your dead body
rotting on the pavement
without a second thought..
and that's a fact, mutha fucka!
03:46 pm - Class War
Jan. 11th, 2004 at 1:21 PM
...written in Samoshel on Jan, 10th, 2003...
I have to cross the picket lines at Von's
With my pocket full of food stamps
The people holding the signs
Look just like all of us
Living in the homeless shelter
Down the block and around the corner
Tucked safely between
The Big Blue Bus depot
and the Santa Monica freeway
Many of us here have
Taken the jobs of the picketers
The rich once more setting
The poor against the poor
And we are urged to do
So-called Community Care
Promoted as a away to
Make the community care
To justify our presence
To say to the businessmen
"We are not the fatally wounded
Who lay in their own piss and shit
In your doorways"
But no one asks how many
Of those derelicts
Still have nightmares from the wars
They fought for those same businessmen
On one asks how many
Of those derelicts who
Sleep in empty boxes
Down on Skid Row
How many of those boxes were
Shipped in from the countries
Where the sleeper's jobs were exported
And no one asks how long
This brutal cycle will be allowed
Well, think on this baby...
The Ring of Fire that
Wreathed LA last fall..
Those fires may very well
Have been born of the fury
Of political impotence..
So think on that, mutha fucka
'Cause without Justice
There will be no Peace
03:41 pm - Welfare Christmas
Dec. 26th, 2003 at 2:39 PM
..written on my bunk at Samoshel on Dec 25th, 2003..
I walk from the shelter to the drop in
The rain is blowing sideways
Cold enough to for me to
Break out my leather
I march through this
Sacred afternoon
I didn't know why I did this
Thinking only...
'I need to be outside'
But I saw my brothers and sisters
Their minds and souls trapped out here
Not knowing they have the choice to
Come inside
They trudge along...a sodden, hang-dog army
Defeated before it even takes the field
And I see I have been sent on
This rain soaked walk
To be their witness
To tell you who sit
Safe and warm and dry
'Be grateful...you are closer
to them than you realize'
My tears are invisible behind
My steamed up, rain spattered sunglasses
I stand upright and march forward
Bolstered by hot coffee
Strengthened by my purpose
And all the Signs and Portents
I see along the Path
Confirm these revelations
And I say again..
'Be grateful...you are closer
to them than you realize'
03:39 pm - downtown saturday afternoon
Nov. 16th, 2003 at 4:28 PM
the low hung sky was gray
the clouds a pale quilting
like the cover on an angel's bed
a cool breeze swept the air clean
crowds of Mexicanos, Guatamatecos, et al
milled through the shop lined streets
musica Nortano drifting among us all
my Spirit is at peace for now
and I am savoring it in every moment
I can give a dollar food stamp
to an old man in a wheelchair
who has the face of a martyred saint
and feel compassion for him
the mirrored sky scrapers tower above us
and beautiful brown girls sway past me
I have the tranquility to take this in
I draw a deep breath and sigh
tho my road is still steep
the tempest has past
03:37 pm - shelter
Nov. 4th, 2003 at 12:22 PM
it's not so bad really
humans can get used to anything
even concentrations camps
this is more DP
lots of crazies, of course
and we are all angry to one degree or another
but what else could be expected
there is a big screen TV
that plays until one AM or so
the cots are big enough
to fit my whole length
the blankets are warm
and I make a the three layered pillow
with my beat up leather jacket
I've owned for twenty three years,
a folded blue hoody,
and the little silk jacket
as a pillow case
I believe I've devised a strategy
to take shower without
too much of a hassle
I'll find out tonight
we sleep and wander around
well, I sleep mostly
or sit on my cot
or watch a little TV
somehow we all seem to bond...kinda
maybe it is what I heard last night
a room of four hundred lost souls
settling into a mass sleep
with an undercurrent of fitfulness
but all the breaths drawn
were drawn and exhaled
in a ragged unison
I lay still and
listened to it for a while
an echo from the heart of the Matmos
listened until until it
lulled me into it's deep rhythm
03:32 pm - Robert Pierson
Dec. 5th, 2005 at 5:58 AM
~Robert Pierson is what most Webanistas would call a ‘sock’, which is why so many trolls fail: they do not Honor their creation.
~To me, Robert is a Persona. (Only his mother and his lovers can call him ‘Bobby’) As a writer and a NYC theater trained actor and director, I created him and inhabited him like I would any character..Fully.
~Robert was born three and a half years ago to help me reconnect with Kayla, an operation I abandoned shortly thereafter. (What was the point?) But he was imbued with that sense of Passion.
~His story is that as a teenager, he killed a man while driving drunk, went to prison, had a Spiritual Transformation while in prison, and immerged as ‘someone else’. He got a job as a professional pallbearer and started writing poetry.
~And I shall share his poems here, as I have long neglected him. Time now to do him Honor…and then lay him to rest. ( The Poetry of Robert Pierson )
Sep. 24th, 2007
02:57 am - Test Post
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Post Test Posting: Odd. This shows up on my various Flists, but the inaugural post in this CJ does not. Hmmm...
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