Alone

What makes someone alone? Is it the simple act of being in a room without having a living being to talk to face to face? Perhaps you are not alone, if there are thousands of people on the internet you can speak to. Is being alone being able to have long deliberate conversations with people you hate, but only being able to spare a few harsh words for the people you really love?

When I am alone? At night when it is dark in the room, and the only comfort I have is the tiny bulb of an led on a 3 yr old Nokia cell phone? Am I less alone if I would embrace the darkness, so I could be one with it, or do I have more friendship with the light that seperates us from nothingness, even if it is only a faint glimmer. Being with that light is more fearful because it casts shadows on all of the unknown around me, distorting them into things that my mind can not comprehend and forces it into an antisocial panic. If I would just let that light burn out, my eyes would adjust and I could see my surroundings and have no need to fear.

Love opens up my heart to new experiences and feelings. However it can easily be killed by disinterest, video games, stress. I miss out on the greatness my life could really be, but my life is so empty without the things I cherish. I miss my house, my beautiful wife. I find myself surrounded by strangers, and cold empty lives that are only comforted by hunger and remembrances of better times in the past. Sobriety is a drug that poisons your mind with reality.

Atlus Pugged

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Pugs are receptacles of love.

Why do people choose to pour their heart into a simple creature that looks like a normal dog that ran into a glass door and their face just stayed that way.
It is easy to displace our feelings into some abstract object that reciprocates unconditionally. However true love is a bond that is formed between two humans, requires sacrifice and care, and is not based on superficial qualities like cuteness and the willingness to lick your feet.

When a man loves a woman, he will pull out all of the stops to make it work. Sometimes this role is reversed, and the woman tries to impress a man with revealing clothing and salacious behavior. This never ends up in a situation where both are happy. The man has to be the initiator. Like an animal a woman too can be a receptacle of love, but they can not love unconditionally as they do. If a woman does not respect and cherish the love they receive, then the relationship will falter.

Pugs can be an accessory to any healthy relationship, but they must not interfere with the channel of feelings taking and redistributing it to each partner, hopefully magnifying the power. Instead a relationship should be so strong that their feelings for each other are too abundant for them both to hold and that the overflow can be shared with another receptacle lest it fade and turn sour to negative feelings.

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Addiction

Looks like its from the sega saturn game. I don't remember anyone being this happy in the original.

Every night I have the same dream. I’m in an elevator that doesn’t stop falling. I’m completely terrified every minute of the ride but it’s the only place where I can sleep. Despite the intense fear I’m completely at peace, and as soon as I get out of it I’m confused and cold and desperate to get back in. I can’t go back though because I know at the end of the ride I’ll meet an end enjoyed only by similar minded deer on the highway. I know I need to get out but I jump back in anyways and continue my descent until I wake up. I never hit the floor and I can’t figure out what keeps saving me.

I know it sounds strange but I can always tell that I’m dreaming so I force myself to sleep in the dream. It’s kind of like the elevator makes stops on different floors but I always end up back on it. Its just that things get so cold out there and I feel dizzy and I have to jump back in or else I feel like I might collapse.

Like this one time I’m on the sun. I keep putting sunscreen on myself so I don’t burn up. I’m like bathing myself in a sunscreen shower but it’s never enough. There are people there with me but the sun doesn’t burn them at all. I keep asking them how they can stand there and not evaporate with every passing solar flare. They just laugh and tell me to keep using the sun screen and you’ll feel better eventually. Then I run out and I don’t know what to do. I jump off the sun and as I’m flying through space the elevator comes by and picks me up. The only thing worse than falling down an elevator shaft, is falling in a space elevator. You can’t figure out if your orbiting, falling, spinning, or if your motionless. Luckily it finds its magical endless shaft and I can scream in fear and fall back asleep as the g’s eventually knock me out.

This time it drops me in a bar. I’ve never been there and I know I’ve never been there, but yet I know everybody there and everybody knows me. I order a screwdriver and it makes me feel good. It feels as good as the elevator come to think of it. I order the girl next to me a drink and I begin making all the moves that have helped me convert so many times in the past. She slaps me in the face and then I realize it’s my ex girlfriend. So I try the girl sitting on my other side. Things are going good and I notice that her necklace is the kind of jewelry I dig. So I ask her if she likes my bracelet. She says of course I do, I bought it for you. Then I realize its my other ex girlfriend. The bar is full of all my exgirlfriends but I can’t tell the difference between them and any of the other girls. They all look the same and I can’t distinguish the thoughts of one from any of the others. I order another screwdriver so I can escape and the bartender sets it down. I reach down to pick it up but its not a screwdriver at all, it’s the elevator again. I jump back in and praise whatever god that invented gravity.

I get out this time and I feel beaten and exhausted. I’m wearing a big blue hat that says “I’m Number 1!” written on it. I’m a pathetic loser that can never stop disappointing himself. Somebody is always better than me and I can never prove myself to my betters. Somebody beats my high score, they bench more weight than me, their grades are better, and they do all this while being all star wake boarders and gymnasts in their free time. I get frustrated and try to throw off the hat but no matter how hard I pull it won’t come off. My friends come over to cheer me up and they take us out drinking to console me. The more I drink the looser the hat becomes and eventually I’m able to take it off. After I am totally smashed I go to find the hat but it’s nowhere to be found. I think I finally see it but it turns out to be the elevator. I tell the elevator to screw off, and that I don’t need it anymore because the booze is doing the trick this time. However my balance isn’t what it should be and I end up falling in anyways.

There’s somebody else in the elevator this time. He’s got these beautiful diamond teeth. I ask him if he has them to chew normally unchewable things. He says nah, the chicks love em, the hoods respect em, gives him bling and flash, and it gives him some extra cash if he ever gets arrested. He says the feds aren’t allowed to pull out teeth bought with drug money because its cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t know if I’m happy to have someone else in the same predicament as me or if I’m upset that I have to share the warmth with other people. Luckily as we fall I notice the g’s are pulling way harder on me, my superiority comes back into check and I don’t mind sharing since obviously it cares much more about me.

I get off and I’m on a sea of glass. Time stands still as I venture forth marveling at my surroundings. Nothing changes and it feels good and I’m not afraid. The sea looks like a giant emerald and spherical droplets hang in the air from cascading waves. I grab one and bring it close to my face and see tiny fish suspended inside. I wander for hours and eventually find a giant blue whale several feet below me. I can see something strange in his baleen but I can’t make out what it is although its familiarity is striking. Suddenly time comes back into motion and I sink immediately. I’m surrounded by thousands of tiny fish frantically flapping their fins seemingly trying to escape something horrible. I can feel a torrent of raw force moving towards me and as I scream the fish scatter. Behind them is the giant whale with his mouth gaping open ready to swallow everything in its path. I think about all the tuna and salmon I’ve devoured in my life and kick myself for not being a vegetarian. I give up hope and accept my fate but as the whale gets closer I can make out what I saw in its teeth earlier. It’s the elevator. I jump inside and escape my doom and promise myself that I’m going to go to Japan and order a whale burger as soon as I get the chance.

Inside the elevator I’m soaking wet and fish fall out of my pockets. My newfound friend doesn’t seem the least bit interested in my predicament. Somehow the fish swim around in the intense g’s as if to them it was as fluid as water. I envy their freedom as I’m pinned up against the ceiling and try to reach out to grab one but am too weak to fight off the resistance. My mate finally yells up to me and asks why it couldn’t have been dolphins. He always liked dolphins and watched Flipper when he grew up as a kid. He said him and his boys used to make bets whether or not the dolphin would be able to kill the shark. Most of the thugs were too tough to bet on the dolphin so he won a lot of money and was able to buy some bangin Iversons. “Best shoes I ever had” and a tear came out from his face and all the fish swam over to it only to be disappointed by its salt content.

I get off this time and I’m in a giant underwater prison. There are guards everywhere with no hope for escape. Outside the water was full of sharks and stingrays and crazed mermen with tridents. I got a man in the cell with me. He says they put him in here because he liked to go up to cops and race them. He’d always beat them and as soon as he notice them calling back up, he’d shoot them and escape. He said he did this almost 9 times before they caught him. He said he had this great plan to escape but that he needed a partner. I loved the idea and I felt alive when I heard him speak. He said he was going to build a giant elevator and we were going to take it to the roof and get out of here. We finished it and let him press the up button. It came down to us, but instead of there being a bellman in there his mother was there with pickaxes and shotguns. He goes in first and I try to follow him but the door slams shut and the elevator disappears.

I curse the elevator gods for forsaking me. We had always worked so good with each other in the past and I couldn’t see why they were leaving me now when I needed them the most. I sit in my cell for what feels like an eternity. I go eat only to find that now I too have teeth made of diamonds. My fellow inmates surround me and knock out all my teeth. The guards help and they split the take. They finally let me go and as soon as I get out I look for the first elevator I can find. Any elevator would work. Maybe one of those old school ones with the pretty wrought iron gates. Even one of those rotating restaurant elevators or those see through hotel elevators that I always wanted to have sex with somebody in.

I can’t find an elevator anywhere. I try an escalator but it moves too slowly. I try running down the stairs, but the safety rail keeps me from falling. Nothing gives me the g’s the elevator did so effortlessly and so consistently. Eventually it stops bothering me so much. Every time I’m on an airplane I start craving it but I’m able to live without it. I don’t feel cold and dizzy anymore. One day I’m walking down the street and I hear a giant crash behind me. I turn around and see this big mash of metal and flesh. It’s hard to tell what it is but I notice there are some diamond teeth implanted in some of the metal. I find some little plastic buttons with numbers and letters surrounded by stars printed on them. I realize that it’s the elevator. That poor fool never got off. The teeth kind of looked like they were in the position of a smile, but the only forensic expertise I have comes from watching CSI. I felt bad for him and wished that he had gotten off with me earlier. However I also felt jealous and kind of wished that it was me who had been in there. I guess I won’t ever be able to shake off these desires, but at least I’ll be alive.

I go back to the sun and I notice that it is not hot as it used to be. My spray on SPF 15 is somehow doing the job just fine. I see all the other people there that were laughing at me before but this time they are clapping. I see through the solar flares. One of them is me with the “I’m number 1 hat”. Except he doesn’t look sad, he looks like he just graduated and got an excellent job. There’s a girl next to him but she doesn’t look like all my ex girlfriends. She is different and prettier and doesn’t need sunscreen or alcohol or anything to keep the sun from burning her. I look down from the sun and I see the underwater prison. However they can’t get me up here and I’m totally safe. It feels warm on the sun and I realize that the elevator was never helping me. It was trying to take me away from here and get me to crash far down below. I kick myself for ever jumping in, in the first place. And it sucks that I have to wear SPF 15 when everybody else that never jumped in is totally fine. But I’m happy that I’m here and I’m alive and I finally wake up. I never have the dream again and I face the sun each day with hope and optimism.

Dream Designs

This was designed by my dreams, manufactured in a thought cloud, and sold in mind markets.

The brain will always find a way to nourish itself. Case in point: dream pitches. I get this all the time. My brain has grown incredibly tired with the indulgent or survivalistic tasks that are thrown at it during the conscious awake state. In retaliation on certain occasions when I go to sleep it throws ideas at me that it wants to see made into fruition. Sometimes it creates the whole machine on its own and throws me at the helm to see if its any fun. Other times it gives me bits and pieces as if to inspire me to fill in the rest when I awake. For you pleasure I am going to post a dream journal that I must have tried to throw onto a word document as quickly as I could, lest I forget even a single detail. In my sleep induced haze the imagery must have been much more powerful, but there are still bits in pieces in there that inspire some deep seated emotion for a memory I have of the dream that never really happened except for what small tinges of recollection creep up when I try to interpret this scrawl.

“Deep Dungeon Game by ****** ****’s Dreams

So to begin with, you are in a multi leveled deep dungeon. The corridors are filled with giant colossi that are shaped as a young girl. They come in different weights and sizes like fish. They have different attack patterns, and each one has a story. The name of the move flashes on the HUD. You have a familiar, who can interpret the raw emotion they throw out when they attack and interprets it into words.

For instance they send out a scouting probe. You grab it and hit it with an ice spell. It immediately moves back to the host and it puts up an ice defense which you tricked it into putting up, then you hit it with a flame attack.
Similar to the steal window from Castlevania curse of darkness, if you counter their moves in a certain way or hit them with a certain attack, they drop the item. In this case rather than dropping an item, they flesh out their personal story. All of the monsters are abominations of their original form. The aliens abducted them and created this interpretation they use for whatever purpose they want, like guardian, or toolsmith. Similar to how there were abominations of familiar things used all over in the castelvania games. The unlocked stories give hints to how you should attack their other moves in order to unlock more. 2-5 ish attack/logs for each. Like for instance if a bull charges you and you use grab, and you grab its horns, this would unlock a story, if you use fire on a burnt corpse, it triggers one thing, and if you use water on it, it triggers another.
When you unlock 4 of the moves in this hanging guarden with the young girls, you unlock a large version of them that shows up. If you can unlock the 5th move on it, then you realize the creature was based off of your DNA when it grabbed you as a little girl. This releases your repressed memories. The whole game you were following your father’s footsteps raiding these left over tombs/bases from these aliens. The true story is that your mother got abducted and somehow destroyed the first wave. However the new wave is about to arrive and with your unlocked powers its up to you to get rid of them.
Anyways, there is a second system similar to Soul Nomad. Based on the money you get from raiding these tombs, and items you use to modify them, you have these boards. Depending on these boards, depends on how many familiars you can place on the boards, each board will have different slots that will give bonuses to what you have in the slots. By killing the enemies, you get tokens to use on this random board generator.
When you kill the final big girl, she transforms into this familiar that looks like a beautiful interpretation of their monstrosity but smaller. If you wait a while, the random modifier comes out, looking like a devil (one of the left over aliens that knows how to modify organisms), asking you if you would like to spin for something better. Depending on your spins (how many tokens depends on how many of the girls you killed) you can get a stronger but slightly more monsterous looking, (less monsterous than the one you killed). Or your slots can just be lame.”

Conspiracy Theory Theatre

Gene Hackman does everything in his power to make sure Will Smith isn't the one to die next.

Ah, hello friends, I’m glad you came back. Ah not my friends you say? Well then why are you here? To show your kids why they actually have to do legitimate research for their assignments? Poppycock! Research gets in the way of creativity and the truth! Research would destroy my ability to divine wisdom from seemingly unrelated occurrences.

Take this for example, Reginae Carter, Lil Wayne’s daughter. This poor 8 year old child was senselessly killed in a car accident the other night. What’s that you say? That was just a horrible rumor based on unfounded reporting? But that would confirm the exact opposite of what I’m trying to prove.

Try this on for size. There is a huge movement rushing through this country being funded by the Whiteocracy, to eliminate the movement in this country towards adopting black culture. All over the United States major black cultural leaders are being eliminated. The recent deaths of Bernie Mac, their greatest comedian and Isaac Hayes their most influential musician and scientologist are just the latest example. Earlier Morgan Freeman was taken out, but luckily it wasn’t fatal.

This may seem like a random string of occurrences, or just a list of recent events that are in no way related, but wait till you consider this. The previous black comedian that was making huge strides in racial commentary and cultural domination, with white future leaders all over the united states quoting his jokes at the drop of a hat, all of a sudden becomes completely crazy and runs away to Africa? No! David Chapelle was drugged and shipped off there, and in his daze and fear has refused to return to television. Not coincidence, fact!

Also a hub for other future American leaders and black cultural den New Orleans, gets wiped off the face of the earth by President Bush’s private hurricane machine that he used to only use to create bad storms when ever his baseball team was losing.

Think its only a modern thing? Let me give you three names. Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson, and Cuba Gooding Jr. One moment they are at the top of their game selling pop albums, winning football games, and starring in Oscar caliber parts. The next they are accused pedophiles, murderers, and starring in Snow Dogs and Boat Trip. Fall from grace brought on by their own personal demons, or systematic destruction by the hands of the whiteocracy? I think the answer is clear.

I can keep this up forever. But I won’t. Ok one more. Michael Jordan. This one isn’t even conjecture, his father was murdered by white supremacists. It was horrible. They were all horrible events. Isn’t that enough of a connection? That they were all horrible? Can’t the president take responsibility so all of our black cultural leaders won’t suffer anymore hardship?

If you want to use journalism and factual proof based conjectures, then use your wisdom to figure out who they are going after next, Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson or Will Smith.

SPEEEEED RAAAACEEEEER!!!

An eclectic masterpiece. Don’t go in expecting a good car movie or you will not enjoy yourself. I watched this movie in a state of fasting and had a similar revelation comparable to Moses or Muhammed after receiving the law of god. It came to me in the pancake scene. No longer did I see it as a franchise remake, but as a fusion of a man’s childhood memories as they are brought up in a state of longing for simpler times but warped by a lifestyle of gender bending hormones and life changing reconstructive surgeries. I couldn’t just watch a movie, but instead saw 6 layers of movies all seemed into one amalgam of color, beauty, hunger, and speed. There is lots of speed in this movie. That is one of the criticisms of this movie is that the racing is too fast and it doesn’t make sense, etc. Well watch this movie after you have been fasting for 6 days, and your metabolism is so slowed down that you take in every frame like you are sitting in an art gallery digesting a classical canvas for hours.

Lana Wachowski originally was the one getting the billing for this one. Later on they downplayed his/her involvement and sold it as a another wachowski bros. movie. However his transvestite bias is stamped all over this movie. The middle rally race in particular where trixie pretends to be speed and the japanse girl pretends to be Rain and vice versa. Lots of gender confusion.

It is a movie that has criticisms about corporate sponsorship and control. Recent allegations in the NBA about refs fixing the games show that this theme is still an issue that is relevant today. The feeling of being a child are so perfectly captured with the scenes about pancakes, Spridels food binges, and Speed’s classroom fantasy’s. But what makes this movie so special is that in the same way Speed Racer dub was not a pure translation of the japanese original, so too does this movie have that perfect blend of American interpretations of how a japanese product should be reworked to fit into what an American enjoys.

No longer are the gadgets the main focus of the race sequences, as they take a backseat to a super spinny arcadey type hot wheels on teacup amusement park ride style driving sequences. Car purists will cringe, salivating fantasy junkies will appreciate the non literal interpretation of what makes racing exciting (I.E. nothing, which is why they have to change everything). In Japan very few people can own and drive cars like in America, so it doesn’t make sense for American’s to have the same kind of fantasies about cars that they do. Thus to me it makes more sense to have the racing in this movie be very fantastical and unrealistic so that Americans who can race in real life have more of an outlet into the unlivable.

Luckily for everyone who hasn’t seen this movie yet, it bombed at the box office, so a blu ray release should be out shortly. It will probably be the first blue ray movie of current generation movies (I.E. not Blade Runner, or old Westerns) that I will find worth purchasing. Also this movie makes John Goodman a believable judo champion, and Susan Sarandon more attractive than ever (pancakes…).

Rejuva Nation

Rejuva Nation

Ch. 1
“We are going to perform a test.”
“A test for what?”
“We have reason to believe that you are an antiquate.”
“A what?”
“Sec 7.31B of the National Constitution Rev. 4.2.3, states an antiquate as an age advanced citizen who under severe physical and mental reconditioning is impersonating and functioning as a citizen of legal adulthood. As you most assuredly know, a legal adult is a citizen who falls between the ages of 21 and 65. Before 21, they function as the entity of an adolescent and past 65 years they relinquish all legal rights and must submit themselves to the nation state. We suspect that you have undergone age modifications and under Act 24.73 you are granted the right to admit to this charge and receive certain clemencies that will not be granted unto you otherwise.”
“This is ridiculous. I just got out of college, what the hell are you talking about.”
“If you refuse to admit, we have tests that will prove you have undergone these modifications and will persecute to the fullest extent of the law, which as of the last senate reconvening is a judgement of death.”
“What do you mean tests?”
“Depending on the severity of reconstruction, it is nearly impossible to detect any vestige of an anitquate’s previous age. However the Himmerman Jey test measures the abundancy of a cell in your spinal cord that under recent medical and computer science is impossible to replace.”
“Are you serious? Does that work?”
“Research has shown that these tests have a 72% success rate.”
“72%! Whatever happened to reasonable doubt!
“Congress has decided that due to our current prison occupancy levels, and the severity of this crime in its relation to national security, that a 72% success rate is in accordance with the amount of antiquates they need imprisoned to justify the size and scope of our antiquate hunting division. Have you heard of us? I am constantly getting on our PR man that our image is underacknowledged and poorly received.”
“Antiquate hunters… You mean the death squad?! I’m being charged by the death squad! Are you serious! My god I need a lawyer, I thought I was just here for a public intoxication!”
“Death squad? This is exactly what I’m talking about. We are public servants who have the same budgets and responsibilities as other organizations like Homeland Security, the FBI, or even the National Tax Association.”
“Look look, I’ll talk what do you want to know, please just don’t kill me!”
“So you admit to being an antiquate? Could you give us the name and whereabouts of the doctor who did the procedure?”
“An antiquate? No I’m just a 23 year old graduate who was out partying with my friends last night. I thought you wanted the name of the guy we got our Intoxicants from.”
“Intoxicants! We don’t give a damn about intoxicants! They are a level 2 security risk. You are under suspicion of a level 32 offense! If you won’t admit, and are wasting my time, I’m going to go ahead and run the test.”
“Fine do what you want. I’m innocent, but I need to call a lawyer first.”
“You are not allowed a lawyer. Any offense above level 24, is denied legal representation. If you would like to speak to a priest and confess, I could arrange that.”
“This is insane, just give me the test. You say it only has a 72% success rate?”
“72% of all antiquates are proven without a doubt to be misrepresenting their age from the test. Anyone else is allowed to walk away free of charge. But if you fail the test and perform the same suspicious activities that you claim are a result of intoxicants, we have the right to bring you in here and perform the test again.”
“Fine, Fine I’ll cooperate, I just want to get out of here.”

Ch. 2
Special Detective Medical Doctor Steven Dennis Michael Donaldson began the measurements the machine needed in order to pinpoint the area to extract the cells needed for the test. SDMD the SDMD is what everybody in the AHD (antiquate hunter division) jokingly referred to him as. However it was a title of respect and only the best of the best were allowed to hold his position. It took a keen and educated eye in order to be able to recognize the patterns that a well trained antiquate would use to hide their age. And SDMD the SDMD had seen them all in his 32 years in the AHD. But the test was the great equalizer. No matter how precise and convicting his intuition was, it always failed compared to the test.
It was a simple procedure, and it was amazing that the maverick doctors who kept performing these reverse agism procedures hadn’t figured out a way to protect against it. The cells around the spinal cord were so complex and vital to the function of the body that no successful artificial replacement had been discovered yet. In fact, on some isolated occasions, a poorly performed test had resulted in the permanent paralysis of the suspected antiquate, and many divisions had lost support and funding due to the resulting fallout. This is where the severe education he had undergone in order to hold his position came in handy. The enforcement squads of the United Nation States used to be full of testosterone overdosed bulldogs that were keen on busting heads and catching bad guys. And in a way SDMD was like those outdated men, but he had the medical education and ethical resilience to hold his position and receive his 2000% increase in pay in comparison to the other agents in lower level divisions.
Many citizens of the newer generations had a hard time understanding the fear and the need for forfeiture of rights of the elderly. However SDMD underwent empathetic and historical training that helped him understand the mindsets that created the laws that defined the current system. He was able to put himself in the feet of the younger generations that were taxed to the bone in order to pay for the services that kept their fathers and grandfathers and eventually great grandfathers at a sustainable level of luxury and care. Medical advances had outpaced the advancements in the economy and the elderly began to become the greatest drain on the nation. The youth were suffering and living in poverty just to be able to help grandpa reach his 150th birthday ration of 32,000 dollars.
Eventually there was a revolution of the youth and a mass genocide of everyone they felt was disabling them from living a full and just life that they were promised at birth. They rebuilt a practical nation that didn’t reimburse those that could not produce a service. Sure they had disability services and packages to serve the impoverished but they drew the line at securities for the elders who became the major scapegoat. They passed more and more sanctions restricting the rights (specifically medical) of people over the age of 65 until eventually they were relinquished to the state to be dealt with in a way that only a few higher ups fully understood. No one really knew if it was good or bad, because no one ever made it back to talk about it. But out of sight was out of mind, and the majority of the population worked just fine under the current system. However there were a few dissidents that were unsatisfied with surrender and the need for the AHD was born. There were some brute force groups that took care of the militant and armed who refused to relinquish their rights, but the AHD was developed for the more difficult and more intelligent who decided to hide as a youth in order to keep on existing in the system. There were some doctors that were willing to perform these age reducing surgeries, because the benefit of the immense treasures that many a 65 year old had accumulated seemed endlessly desirable compared to whatever sanction the nation could hold against them for breaking the law.
Currently the worst penalty they had designed was exile on a mining colony, but in a way it wasn’t a terrible penalty, because on the colonies they didn’t have so many strict agism laws. Life was so difficult and terrible there, that people were happy just to survive, let alone pass social reimbursement legislation. But a lot of elderly just didn’t want to suffer on some distant outreach of space and wanted to live off the supple and vibrant existence they had on this planet. Thus the AHD took the brightest and most state minded individuals they could recruit and hunted down the antiquates with a ferocity and zeal that was unmatched by an other state sponsored department.

Ch. 3
SDMD finished the test and felt relieved by the results. For the 123rd time, his intuitions were right. He was staring into the eyes of a bonified antiquate. He wondered how old he was. SDMD had just passed his 63rd birthday a few months ago and was dying to know what hopelessness these people felt that would drive them to such drastic measures. That was out of his specialty though, and entirely in the hands of the Federal Psychology Administration. Even though he had a rivaling level of knowledge in the field, he was forbidden from asking the controversial line of questioning that he was growing more and more tempted to carry out. But he knew this procedure was being monitored and compared to a more basic and less free interrogation procedure by a level 4 matching server. He had some room for creativity, but discerning opinions about why someone would undergo reverse aging modification would certainly raise some bells and whistles in the machine and have him locked up tight in a dark room with internal affairs.
He never understood the dark room interrogation procedure, he always loved relying on the hot warmth from a strong lamp to plunge into the face of a strong minded resistant. Perhaps the internal affairs men just wanted to remain confidential. Similar to jury duty, every few months an agent would be secretly reassigned the additional task of internal affairs, and the amount of time most agents spent in and out of the office allowed this to be a useful and successful delegation of duty. SDMD had served in internal affairs only a few times. He was so successful at it, that he made the department look bad with all the people he would catch, and they decided it was a lot easier to maintain funding if they assigned someone to it with far less zeal.
It was easy for an agent to go rogue with their vast access to confidential information, increased security clearance, and advanced level of medical knowledge. SDMD would recall in a speech he made every year at their annual banquet about an agent who would capture antiquates, extort them out of all of their money for his “protection services”, and even perform youthenizing (not mercy killing, making youthful) surgeries on them in order to keep the cashflow continuing for as long as possible. He took a severe pleasure in dismantling that operation, but the bad press that followed, almost had his department dismantled, despite all the good that was being done there. So that was the last time SDMD was “randomly drawn” in order to clean house. The powers that be felt that as long as things were running at a level that kept them within guidelines, there was no need to shake things up.
And part of those guidelines was catching a certain amount of antiquates every year, like the man in this room who was doing everything in his power to convey a quizzical and bewildered sense of immaturity who had seen nothing of the world, and couldn’t believe there were forces out there like this one that existed to hurt him. But hurt him they would, as soon as SDMD filled out a few forms this man would be sent through a system that would have him executed with a span of 8 hours. SDMD didn’t even have to notify a next of kin, because when the laws were written, it was assumed that these antiquates would be unable to contact their passed loved ones for fear of being found out. On one occasion an antiquate had been found to be over 300 years old, which helped justify the clause, since assuredly no one still existed who had knows him in his legal life.
The man who brought him in likened the experience to catching a 300 pound catfish on a 2 pound test fishing line. He reported in the famous book he wrote, “Older than time itself”, that it was possible for the antiquate to possibly keep up his lifestyle for another 300 years if it hadn’t been some lucky twist of fate that had landed him in the fisherman’s net. “It was the machines. If it is one fault of mankind has resisted in their evolution, is the polarization symbiosis with machines can bring out in creating ease or mass confusion. In this case we made a routine call on an illegal transaction from a fuel station Automated Teller Machine. He kept trying to withdraw 5000 dollars when he only had a $200.00 limit. Once we arrived we found out he was legitimately trying to withdraw $50.00 and tried our best to keep the rookies from saying something condescending while I helped him get his money out. However it was something he said that made me call the ADH. “I remember when these things used to just take your card and spit out money.” None of could recall a card based machine that didn’t use advanced fingerprint based identification and sensation inputting devices. We called the bank and they had a record on file of some card based systems from 200 years ago. The ADH took care of the rest and we all received a big bonus and some guy even called to give us all a book deal, and I told him not to put that in the book, but he said people like the meta third wall breaking stuff and I acquiesced to his experience.”
SDMD liked to read the book on the really slow months and fantasize about getting his big catch. “Nothing too involved or controversial, just someone really old and harmless. Some old lady who couldn’t abandon her garden and has spent 150 years growing the perfect roses. Or maybe a man that has been practicing his quickdraw for 70 years until he could draw faster than Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Poncho Villa, and Billy the Kid combined. What’s with these anachronistic fantasies? These references have almost no relevance in my timeframe. Maybe I’m an antiquate that got one of those memory reconditionings and some of my real thoughts are resurfacing. Nah that’s ridiculous, I’ve just been clocking too many hours in history training.” ADH agents had to spend an appreciable amount of their dead time in history training, because it could not be counted how many times an agent had caught an antiquate based on an outdated reference.
However the person in front of him provided no outdated references and fit the bill of a young fresh start to a tee. If it hadn’t been because of his erratic behavior while being drugged on intoxicants, he probably would have gone undetected. The test showed that he was 71 years old. It might have been the first time he had gone out and celebrated since his rebirth, but it only took one slip up when the ADH was on it’s A game. After he restrained the antiquate he told him that he had proved positive and two men carried him out to Psyche and eventually he would end up in the execution ward. He kept up the act to the end and it took all of SDMD’s faith in the system to keep up his work.
“HEY SDMD YOU FINISH UP IN THEY-AYR!”
The chief’s fierce echoing howls could be discerned from any crevice of the station. Many of the agents deduced that he was some robot derivative left over from the ban on all anthromorphic replicants. SDMD knew him well enough to know that the chief’s charisma and act were all his own. He had been there since before the chief had even been in charge and had seen his development from a careful discerning pushover to a close minded invincible ball buster. It took a keen mind to be agent and a full and content mind to abstain itself from all further thought like the chief’s. The chief did everything in his power to keep the department following the statist directions, and refrained from letting it slip into either advancement or decay. SDMD quickly worked his way to the main office. He found it best not to anticipate what these meetings would bring or try to prepare himself. They ranged from condemnations to ass chewings to bonuses, all spoken in the same blistering tone. He learned to take them like a swift blow from a fleeing perp; with a stiff chin.
“LOOK HEE-UH. I WANTED YOU TO SEE THIS FILE FOIST! WE AH GIVING YOU A NEW PAHT-NA. NOW DAT YOU AH NEARING RE-TY-UH-MENT, WE WANTED YOU TO TRAIN A FRESH REPLACEMENT.” The chief was getting exhausted from all the harsh yelling. He eventually slipped into his normal dialect, similar to how a lot of the antiquates would slip into their old age habits upon exhaustion. “You’re the best we got, and this new kid is the best we could find. I’d ask you how you feel about him, but I got you pegged. Read this anyways, because your files sync so naturally I know you must be salivating in anticipation.” SDMD grabbed the file and checked it out.
Top of his class, eagle eye marksman, expert surgeon, stable psyche exams, slight tendency towards aggression, robot specialist… “Robot specialist? I thought they were banned?” “Yes your correct, most robots were banned. Specifically robots that could replace the work of humans. However our new young hot shot uses a special miniature auxillary robot that performs functions that everyone on this team is incapable of doing. It started off as superhuman precise surgical tool that gained more and more autonomous features as our new recruit found needs for them and he implemented them.”
“Wait you mean he designed it himself? Geezus why is this kid working here, they should send him off to the colonies to get some real work done with the kind of hardware he has up in his brains.”
“Yes that was one of the questions the psych ward kept bringing up in his interview process, but he said he hates space and loves the Earth. We wanted to make sure he wasn’t in some Gaeaist cult or anything like that and he checked out clean. He also had a 99.4% personality match with our model, which if you will recall is even higher than yours of 99.32%, which was the highest any department had ever recorded. So we are committed to his earnest passion for the work. He’s a real cowboy and said he wanted to get the worst bad guys he could find. There isn’t much higher than level 32, and the men that take care of those don’t even get to keep their human faculties. As you probably remember from your transferral rejection letters, which broke my heart by the way, those ranks are only made up out of modified inmates who signed up for service. The priests really do a good job of getting them to sign over their faculties willingly, and its been proven that the ones that earnestly believe they are giving themselves for the sake of the world, tend to sync up better with the machine synthesis. But just between you and me, I have good information that shows our boy working with his robot operating buddy have actually scored higher in terrorism control simulations than those freaks in the reclaimed human cyborg corps. If you are ready he is waiting downstairs.”
SDMD went downstairs and prepared to greet the young cadet the same way he greeted all the young grunts. “Nice to meetcha my body, the name’s Special Detective Medical Doctor Steven Dennis Michael Donaldson, but you can call me SDMD the SDMD for short.”
“Good to meet you sir, I’m Arrow Dartmouth. You’re joking about that name right? I mean I’m an SDMD too but that would be ridiculous if that’s how I identified myself with everybody I know.” A frown swept across SDMD’s face and Arrow noticed it as quickly as an anachronistic John Wayne style Indian would shoot an arrow through a circling caravan. “I mean of course sir, that a division as forward thinking as the AHD wouldn’t waste time on silly titles that are used to proclaim reverence to age. I mean isn’t that the kind of attitude that we are fighting against?” SDMD knew it to be true and realized that having a 99% personality match with someone didn’t necessarily mean that they would be getting along or enjoying each other’s company.
“Sure Arrow, I was just joshing you. You can just call me Donald. You know like Donald Duck? But don’t let anyone else in the department know I let you call me that, ok? I make everybody else keep up the joke. It’s one of the only unwritten rules around here, you know, besides the other 11,322 written in national policy. You know who Donald Duck is don’t you?”
“Huh, of course. In fact I do an impression of Donald Duck getting his hand stuck in an electric outlet. They used to laugh about that one all the time back in my history classes. Remind me to do that one for you some time when you are feeling really depressed. In fact I wanted to get that out of the way now before we officially become partners. One of my missions in training under you is to make sure that you don’t have any mental slips before retirement. According to your psych evaluations that despite your pristine and phenomenal record, you have been showing some sympathies towards the antiquate plight. Your latest tapes show that you are becoming more lenient in interrogation and having too much of a reliance on the HJ test.”
“Of course I rely on the HJ test, it is the most powerful asset we have against antiquates.”
“I must politefully disagree with you. Using complex psychology tests mixed with a pattern recognition software I have developed, I have been able to have a 95% detection rate in simulation compared to that of 72% of the HJ. In fact I have been authorized to use my test in all convictions we capture, and if they are successful my techniques are going to be used in every department in the nation. I am hoping you will cooperate with me on this one, it is important for my career.”
“Oh yeah, well I was just in interrogation with an antiquate right before you got here, and he should be getting out of psych right now, why don’t you show me what all the fuss is about.” Donald saw Arrow’s eyes light up in away that brought up images of wolves tearing into a tightly sinewy tendon of a deer. Maybe there is something to this kid after all.
“Hold on Arrow I’ll get the perp prepped for you right now.”

Ch. 4
After Donald had gotten the antiquate ready in the interrogation room he returned to find Arrow fiddling around with a strange machine that looked like a socketed sphere hiding many secrets and appendages. As he drew closer he saw the top half of the ball spin around and narrow optical lenses focused in on him and he heard a noise emit from some unseen speaker.
”hello doctor Donaldson! I am Fujisaki model nijuhachi. I have heard all about you, and downloading all of your accomplishments put quite a strain on my processes. It will be an immeasurable pleasure to work with you. I actually did measure it but arrow said it would be more flattering if I didn’t state the actual number.”
“That’s enough Neejahaachi. Not everyone is going to warm up to you immediately as I have. Give the doctor some time to adjust to the partnership.”
“Neejahachi is what you call that thing?”
“I think it has a nice crime fighting ring to it. Like Tonto to the Lone Ranger. It’s impossible to have a Cherokee companion in this day and age, so I make due. Since we are fighting history I tend to verbalize with allegorical references. I was told in training that the only way we can catch these old symbolages that the antiquates hold on to is if we constantly use them ourselves.”
“Yes I couldn’t agree more. However, like you were saying, I spend so much time in the history rooms that I must say I tend to like the old stuff better than our modern entertainment. Perhaps its things like that which are giving me poor performance ratings on the psych tests.”
“Well I love them too, and my psyche ratings aren’t all over the place like yours. Don’t worry I’ll be here to help you and we will get it figured out. However, I have special permission to do this interrogation alone. It has by no means passed federal regulations and I can’t patent it until its proven to work constantly in a non simulated setting. On the plus side it doesn’t take very long, and I should be out of here in 15 minutes. Neejahachi cmon and begin program 14f-z.”
“don’t worry doctor, I practiced this program 12532 times while you were talking with only 12 failures. I am sure our work will be satisfactory.”

Ch. 5
After 30 minutes, Arrow came out of the room with a heavy sweat and a disgruntled look on his face. The antiquate inside looked surprisingly complacent, as if the hand of god had come down to pull him from the fiery pits of hell and alleviated all his fears. Nijuhachi’s bright LED’s were reduced to a faint glow.
“I’m sorry Doctor Donaldson, I ran the configuration as many ways as I could, and every time the results were negative.”
“Ha, well it shows maybe you have something left to learn and maybe this partnership will be of some benefit to you.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. The test worked fine, but this man is not an antiquate. I ran some additional tests and I found out that the drugs he was taking the night before damaged some of the cells in his spinal column resulting in the overaged readings from the HJ test. He burned out his cells to achieve some form of high, but I took additional samples from an irreplaceable portion of his brain and those tested out to show an age of 23. If you feel uncomfortable with my results, I’d be willing to file an appeal with the chief.” Donald looked at the man in the interrogation room. Arrow’s report checked out. An intoxicant that would cause damage to the cells measured by the HJ test could show similar symptoms to that of a possible antiquate. The debilitating stages of spinal drugs like that showed similar effects to that of severe age in test rats. It was a contributing theory to account for some of the failures of the HJ test, but nothing was conclusive enough to be mandated into law. This was just the kind of thing that the chief hated more than anything else. Damning evidence that would force change in litigation and departmental procedure. Donald was finally beginning to warm up to the idea of having this young partner to shake things up a bit.
“I think that’s for the best. The kind of support you are looking for is far beyond my expertise. I will tell you this much though, you better be damned sure you know what your talking about, because its mistakes like these that can get a young career snuffed out before its prime.”
“It is funny that you mention that, because arrow was just commenting that he was worried about reporting his findings because it might get you retired early for your wrongful arrest.” Arrow immediately reached for a remote in his pocket and Nijuhachi shut down and became silent.
“I’m sorry about that Doctor Donald. The personality functions are the hardest things to program, and I have to make his observations sharp in order to bring the most benefit when we are undergoing pattern recognition.”
“Don’t worry about it, he had a point. I felt bad about this one as soon as I sat the perp down in there and he didn’t go into the prepared defenses that a lot of other antiquates seem to bring with an automatic response. I am a professional though, and I can not trust only my judgement. If a legal state test proves a man guilty, than he is guilty. I pray to God that better systems like the ones you are designing become legalized so that future agents like yourself have better tools in the fight against anti-statism.” That was the best answer Donald could think to give to a young man who was trying to take the world on his shoulders as he too had done when he was a young man.
The only recognition he had received when fighting mandated standards were derision and hatred. He liked to think that it helped him build a strong character, but maybe they had really formed deep rooted seeds of self doubt that were now beginning to show themselves as he was approaching the end of his useful life. What had he brought to the world besides 122 legal convictions? He thought about the early days when HJ tests weren’t legalized and you never really knew if the man in front of you was an antiquate except for all the hard detective and forensic work you had done to make certain you were damn sure.
Donald sat and chewed on these ideas while Arrow went to speak to the chief. He was a bit more composed and assured by the time Arrow was shot back.
“The chief says that its fine, he got a pass from the higher ups. He said he wanted you to walk me around the beat for a while, until he got our big assignment all cleared up. Do you have any idea what he is talking about?”
“Sometimes we have to do some underground ops work. You know things like foreign ministers, congressman and senators. A lot of those men are unwilling to give up their power and have done some very creative things in the past to keep on running their respective spheres of power. Also, many of the fringe countries in our united council will elect figures that are past their legal age, despite constitutional dictates that disallow this, citing their strict cultural reverence for their ancestors.”
With Arrow’s curiosity satisfied, they went out on patrol.

Ch. 6
“All right lets do some rookie tests. Before we go anywhere, I’m curious what they teach you when trying to profile a perp. Where do you think would be the best place to get started in our search?”
“Well, rule 101 is that you are always supposed to be on the lookout. The most consistent patterns that has been observed, is that there is no consistent profile for an antiquate. Obviously some red flags are reaching a high amount of wealth without having an heir, couples with a large disparity in age, artists that have been working on a piece for a long time without resolution, and perhaps executives that feel their corporations would fall apart without their leadership.”
“That’s all very true, and many of the people brought in fit those stereotypes. In fact we had a strange call come in from a pet shop that I would like to get checked out. They got an order from a wealthy caller who wanted a custom jeweled collar for her dog Ignaceous. The strange thing was that they had an order for a similar collar that went back 24 years. Now it is normal for people to replace an old dog with a new dog and give it the same name, and I asked if the measurements were the same, and the clerk said they were, so it is possible to replace them with the same breed. However when the clerk asked if she wanted to bring the dog in for its identification chip, all dogs that receive expensive jewelry like this have to get chipped for insurance purposes, the lady said there was no need. Now it is possible that she got the dog chipped somewhere else, but this shop is one of the only places that does this procedure within 300 miles of here, and we had no record for a Rufus ID in our central database.”
“So you think its possible that she has been doing age modifications on her dog? That’s ridiculous, that must cost a fortune!”
“If it is one thing that history has shown for old people with immense wealth, is the disproportionate amount of money they spend on their animals compared to a rational level.”
They arrived at the address of a Hilda C. Barris. A 52 year old widow whose much older husband had been retired several years ago, leaving her an immense fortune. When they arrived at the house they were greeted by a young woman dressed in an elaborate french maid’s uniform. Everything about this place reeked of class and dignity. They informed the maid that they were from the insurance company and had some questions for the owner, and the maid informed them that if they would be so kind as to wait in the parlor, she would fetch Mrs. Barris. Legally the AHD agents were allowed to misrepresent themselves, because the reputation of their department was so infamous it would cause most suspects to fled or react dangerously, rather than allowing a rational investigation.
Mrs. Barris eventually emerged from the back wearing a gardening outfit, with a visible covering of dirt and perspiration. She was carrying a small dog with her that had the appearance of being a young pup of a large breed, with oversized paws and large eyes that did not fit the size of its head. Donald leaned over to Arrow and whispered, “Now let me do the talking and maybe you can learn something. Dealing with these mature ladies is my specialty.”
“Forgive us mam. We just had some questions about the fine animal you are holding. We noticed that you hadn’t gotten it identification tags for your new purchase and we were wondering why you decided not to register.”
“Well as you can see I have it right here. Doesn’t it look splendid on my little Ignaceous? His old collar was getting so worn that I just had to buy him a new one. I still have the receipt, and I can assure you that I paid for it in full.”
“That won’t be necessary mam. I noticed your animal is quite young, were you worried that it was too immature to undergo the procedure? I can assure that it is quite safe for him at any age.”
“Well he was just so sick. I’ve never seen him get like this before. He reminded me of my husband when he was getting near the end of his legal life. When they took Mr. Barris away from me I didn’t have much left, well besides this fortune, and little Ignaceous here has been a great comfort to me.”
Arrow interrupted with that fierce piercing glare that beamed from his eyes like a bullet from a rifle that felt depressed it was having to hit a target at such a proximal range, when it knew it could get it from at least an additional 200 yards, “You say little Iggy here has been of great comfort to you, but our files show that your husband passed 30 years ago. In fact, we have a file stating you commissioned an ID for an Ignaceous 23 years ago. Madam I can assure you that insurance fraud is a very severe offense. Are you having some debt problems? Are you in trouble with some of the local organized families or loaning brokerages?”
“What! Heavens no! Ignaceous was a fine dog. How dare you to make me have to remember him! I loved that dog with all my heart, and he filled a hole in my soul that I could never replace with Mr. Barris gone. Yes I got a replacement dog, ok? I know it sounds superficial, but it really is a lot like having the old Ignaceous around, isn’t he just the spitting image of the former?” She pointed to a mural she had on the wall of the dog. It looked proud and majestic. Its eyes showed the reverence and prestige of an animal that had been primmed and permed and fawned over for years.
“Yes he is a fine example of pedigree. Please Mrs. Barris, forgive my partner. He is new and impetuous. I assure you that we are not accusing you of insurance fraud, we just wanted to get the matter of the identification tags settled. If you would give me a moment I would like to discuss something with him, please have a moment to compose yourself.”
Donald dragged Arrow to a corner of the room and before he could get a word in Arrow whipped out nijuhachi and started making notes.
“Notice the mural and the collar. Everything here shows the dog as a pup. Even the mural uses the model of the dog as a puppy. Donald look at the dog. My mother used to keep tons of yapping puppies around and they never behave that well. That animal has the spirit of a dog way past its years. Both the collars are fitted for a puppy, even though it would outgrow them in months. I think we are definitely on to something here.”
“I am behind you 100%. But we have to handle this delicately, most people are not aware of the fact that animal age modifications are looked on by the law as legally punishable as if they were done on a human. Who knows what she might do if she finds out she could be getting the death penalty. Just keep your mouth shut and we will do this my way.”
“I’m very sorry Mrs. Barris, but we are going to have to take the dog in for identification.”
“No! You can’t do that. He has been very sick. Who knows what might happen to him if he is without my care!”
“I can assure you that the dog will be treated with the utmost professionalism and care.” Arrow grew restless and jumped in pulling out nijuhachi and inputting some program that caused it to form an appendage that looked similar to a radar scanner.
“There is no need to worry miss. If you don’t want us to bring him into the clinic, I can do it right here. All I need to do is press a few buttons, and here it is done. One Ignaceous, breed pug, age 23 years…Mrs. Barris, did you have your old dogs ID put in this one to scam us? You know it is a very serious offense and you can face possible jail time.”
“Please stop! I didn’t have any tags replaced. That is Ignaceous!”
“That is preposterous. Please mam, don’t try to lie to us. I can assure you that we are professionals and know what we are doing. That dog doesn’t look a day over 4 months.”
“It is, it really is. I just love Ignaceous like this. When he gets older, he just doesn’t look as cute and cuddly. I have him fixed every couple years. Its such a breath of fresh air. He got an infection from his old collar and I had to get rid of it, but he gets so depressed when he isn’t covered in nice jewelry. Please, I couldn’t get him a new ID because they would find out that I was illegally youthenizing him. But just look at him. Isn’t he the most adorable creature you have ever seen? He just loses his luster when he gets older, and I could never replace him with another dog. Please don’t tell anybody, I have lots of money, surely you need a new car or help with the down payment on your house.”
Donald couldn’t believe she fell into Arrow’s trap. Of course there was nothing illegal with trying to bribe insurance investigators. They were privately employed and dealing with them didn’t have the same restrictions as a real investigative law officer. But Arrow just got them a taped confession of illegally performing age modifications on a dog. They would have to bring her in, and they had enough evidence to get her convicted and receive a judgment of death. Donald felt his empathy training becoming very strained.
The ancients that wrote this constitution would assuredly have no mercy for a woman that was spending millions on keeping her dog in some perverted state of life when billions of real life people were suffering in poverty. But despite his empathetic alignment with the statist doctrine, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for this poor lonely woman, whose only companion was this freakish misconception of Man’s best friend. At times like this it helped to have a ruthless partner that was more concerned with making a name for himself than caring about the well being of some legally diagnosed psychopath that would probably be put down in a matter of days like the dog that should have been taken care of years ago. Yes, this would be a good time to let Arrow learn how to process the paperwork for a booking as lethal as this one.

Ch.7
“What am I supposed to do with the dog?” Arrow’s words rang into Donald’s ears, reverbed around for a little bit, some stuck here and there, but most were drowned out by his thoughts for the animal. He felt walls breaking down, synapses that used to be fresh and vibrant were disconnecting and being replaced by little barks and whimpers. It really did work. Sure the dog must have seen more than most men have in their lifetimes, but it still gave the appearance of a little puppy that needed to curl up in your lap for warmth, and then let loose a stream of urine in your lap because it has no control of its bladder. Good god, why did she want it to stay in such a retarded state of being for so long, isn’t there some worth to having a mature learned dog that has years of bonding and maturity to compensate for its external decrepitude.
“they say that canine eyes are an aphrodisiac in some countries. Perhaps we should salvage it for parts?”
“Nijuhachi enough. Good grief, I thought we worked out your practicality versus humanitarian issues. I’m sorry Donald, if you can only imagine what its like to raise a child with no inherent religious moral background and instinctive basis for common decency; maybe you would understand what it is like to raise an A.I. I mean I tried to give him a religious background, but his logic drives were so sophisticated and fullproof, he refused to accept it.”
“No, it’s all right. That would probably make the most sense, that animal is a living liability. However, I have a friend in the National Preservation Society that has a knack for cases like this. After I go take care of it, and you finish things up in here, I want to take you to this favorite bar of mine to celebrate your first big catch. It’s called the Lost Paradise Tavern, mainly because wonderful things happens there that no one is able to remember afterwards.”
“That’s funny, I’ve never heard of it, and I went to college around here.”
“See, it works.”
“its okay, I found the coordinates. It will be a pleasure to meet with you dr. there are so many things I would like to discuss if I could have a moment of your time.”
Donald nodded, took the dog and made the way for his ride home. He couldn’t take it to the National Preservation Society. They never preserved anything. In reality, they mainly destroyed things that somehow disrupted the status quo like this discombobulating dog. He took it back to his apartment and got it some food. For a rich and spoiled dog, it took to his cheap scraps rather quickly, found a warm spot, and immediately crashed. Donald took note from his newfound companion’s directions and took a quick bite, slunk into his chair, and fell into a deep hazy sleep.
He found himself in a familiar area. Why was it familiar? It smelled like the aftershave he used every morning if it had been dumped in a bucket full of mashed roses. He saw a beautiful woman drenched in ammo belts and projectile weapons. He asked her for her name and she replied by shooting him in the face. Except instead of feeling hot lead entering through his pores and exiting out through his hair follicles, he tasted the rich gooey warmth of a glazed donut. “You shot me with a donut? You obviously hold all the keys to my heart.” He began to approach her when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his toes.
He woke up and kicked the dog off his foot. He grabbed his coat and made for the bar. He found Arrow knee deep into a conversation with a long legged woman and was about to go talk to him when he was blindsided by Nijuhachi.
“doctor please. Explain to me I don’t understand. What is he thinking?”
“What you robots don’t have sexual reproduction?”
“No I mean what is he doing with one of those.”
“You know perpetuation of species. Mixing it up. Lucky bastard, she looks like quite a catch.”
“doctor she is a minor.”
“Whatta you mean? She couldn’t be a year younger than 26.”
“look at her doctor. She can’t sit still”
“He is a good looking guy, she’s probably just excited.”
“I am doing a reading of her heartrate. It is obviously undersized for trying to support such a mature body. She must be considerably taking years off of her life. It is causing slight tremors and other undetectable physical signatures that you can’t visualize but that I can bear witness to as clearly as you can see her sex appeal.”
It wasn’t entirely untypical. The average life expectancy under current medicine was upwards of over 100. With the legal age ending at 65, many youths were eager to accelerate their development and gain legal status rather than having to wait until 21. Donald remembered his awkward development and could see why they might not be the most poignant years to experience if he could be having a blast jumping bars, bones, and busting faces.
“How old is she?”
“it is difficult to say, but judging by her accelerated heart rate compared to her external features, she may either be on heavy amphetamines, cocaine, or is around 12 years old.”
“12 years! Good god. When I was 12 I was lucky if I could even find my sexual organs, let alone be inclined to use them in such a fashion. Did you let him know what he was dealing with?”
“I tried but as soon as he saw her he immediately set me to a passive mode where I can not speak to him or people surrounding him. I hate it when he does that. He used to just shut me down, but I was so angry with him that I spent the next 7 months slightly varying all the data he would ask for, until he realized what was going on. Now I have autonomous freedom when we go out to social functions and the other day I had this amazing conversation with a jukebox who was trying to write the next hit that would fuse the soothing voice of a lounge singer with the harsh Vibrations of an electro string quartet.”
“Yeah that’s great, I can’t imagine why he would ever act like that.” Donald suddenly felt pity for Arrow and didn’t feel so bad at his age for not having a wife or kids. This robot seemed to have the intellectual reassurance neediness of a child combined with the emotional cravings for attention of even the most co dependent women.
But then again, he did have strong statist cravings to be an ideal American World Citizen and reproduce and marry and leave his mark on the world. And the woman, er girl, beside Arrow brought all these desires to a profound apex similar to the apex that he was sure was forming below Arrow’s abdomen. Was it ok to live through his younger counterpart? 63 was still young even though it was near his legal limit, and there were plenty of opportunities provided for a man of his stature and physique to sow with his oats. But right now he was content to listen to the ramblings of some insecure and assuredly jealous robot and fantasize what it must be like to be young and with some emotionally immature yet physically fascinating female specimen. Could robots have Oedipal complexes? Listening to this AI fawn over his creator with such bitter heartbreak made him feel like this was no doubt a possibility.
Arrow finally took a moment to pull out from his dive into his alluring companion and took a breath before resubmerging. Inbetween gasps of air he thrust his head to the side and noticed his boss, whose ears looked quite red, was having his auditory faculties systematically destroyed by the vocal ramblings of an intelligence who could process so much information and thought, but have absolutely nothing to direct it to.
“Hey Donald come here, I want you to meet somebody. This is Roxanne. Cmon’ honey impress the man, you don’t know how important he is.”
“Hello Doctor, my name is Roxanne Rubbette. I think I have seen you here before, but I have never have had the pleasure of an introduction.”
“The pleasure is all mine. You take care of this guy, he’s a good kid. Has an amazing head on his shoulders, almost as amazing as what you have on your shoulders. What are those? They can’t be diamonds. I make more money than 98% of the people in this bar, and I can’t even afford diamonds.”
“What a keen eye you have. I should have thought twice before wanting to hob nob with detectives like you two. I can get a good price on these synthetics, and I find they take away from my imperfections.”
“Can you believe this girl doc? What imperfections? She is the most pristine picture of the female form I have ever born witness to. I’m sorry if that bucket of bolts over there was bothering you, if you want I can reprogram him to leave you alone.”
“No its ok. I was getting tired anyways. I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done, and cement this partnership early, before something could happen to it while it was trying to set. Like some asshole that writes a poem in the sidewalk, and you have to read it everyday when you are trying to clear your mind on a relaxing stroll. On my first partnership, we didn’t celebrate our first bust, and every year there would be one day when he would just act totally strange. One year he was totally out of it and I ended up getting shot. He looked happy. I finally got some psych guys on him, and they told me that he felt under acknowledged and appreciated, as if I had forgotten our wedding anniversary or something. But I won’t make the mistake this time. Even you little robot. You did a great job today too.”
Donald walked over to Nijuhachi and put his arm around its shoulders? More like where he could hold it and have his weight supported. It looked like arms came out of there sometimes, so they possibly could be considered shoulders. Obviously Arrow did not take into account how to sell the sophistication in design in something as simple as a sphere, but the contraption got the job done and Donald was sure whoever paid for it got their moneys worth and then some.
“Listen to me. Don’t give Arrow any grief over the girl. She looks harmless and I don’t want to cause any trouble. If it becomes anything more than a one night stand we will deal with it later.”
“Acknowledged. Good night detective. I await the morning where we will see fit to solve an uncountable amount of insurrections.”
Donald retreated back to his domestic abode, to find the dog chewing on his shoe and when he picked it up to save its leather hide, he was sloshed by the urine that the animal had left inside of it.
“There is no way you could be this old and have such awful habits. I bet you were specifically trained to keep up these murder inducing tendencies.” Oh what a sick assumption, but it was probably right. Did she used to beat this animal whenever it would hold its bladder and go outside, only to rub its nose in it and throw it next to some thousand dollar shoe or prized ceramic. Did she get off on the sheer adrenaline of wanting to kill something you love so much because you are full to the brink of venomous rage that your kicks were soiled or chewed up? Maybe it was for the best that this woman was going to be executed.
Ch. 8

Donald woke up early the next morning and proceeded to get to work as quickly as possible. He always made it a point with new partners to get to work earlier than them, in order to shame them into working harder. Then the next day he would show up, and there would be his partner before him. They would tradeoff, continually pushing the envelope until sometimes neither of them would go home, just to have the satisfaction of being there first.
When he got to work he checked the logs, and sure enough he was the first one to clock in. With a mild satisfaction, he went over the dossiers and possible leads and tips that had accumulated from the night before. One headliner was about a young senator who was pushing for increased funding for the AHD and rumors were going around that he was going to push a vote to lower the legal age from 65 to 60. The young radicals were forming a larger and ever growing movement of increased budgetary spending for popular youth programs that came about at the cost of the rights and assets of the elderly who passed their legal age. Donald thanked god that whenever these kinds of resolutions got passed they had a 10 year acclimation phase before they could come into effect. His last 2 years would be safe. He heard the sheery shufflings of the chief, shimmering his legs together as fast as he could, like a woodsman trying to start a fire with two sticks, and Donald wondered if despite his legal sovereignty, that he might be in some danger.
“Did you hear the news about this god damn genius they have in the senate? His new measures could give me a 32% pay raise. Then I could finally afford one of the new Somy Visuals. Do you know what it is like to look into those new Visuals? They say it’s like staring into the face of god. When I was testing it out in the store, they had this Medusa clip, and I swear when I saw her, my body really did turn to stone. The clerk had to pull me away from the screen and slap me around until I came back to my senses. I need one of those, and by god I hope this legislation gets passed. You got one of those? I swear you make more money than anybody in here, but you throw around less cheddar than those tightwads in the accounting department. Just what do you do with all your money?”
“Oh you know the usual, nice house, slick transportation, state of the art entertainment. I’d bring you by to show it all to you, but you’d be so jealous you’d probably kill me in my sleep and live in my house until you were found out. I know you. Even if you’d be caught in two weeks, you’d probably think it was worth it.”
“You’re god damn right about that. I am so sick of everything at my place. I may not kill you, but I would kill for this legislation to get passed. Whatever happened to the old draconian days where senators would have each other killed for a small amount of coin. I’d take that job in a heartbeat. Much more satisfying than putting an end to a bunch of old rustbuckets like that woman you brought in yesterday.”
“You mean you already processed her? That must be some kind of record.”
“Well that new hotshot we partnered you with got some pretty damning evidence on her. Damn fine detective work. We didn’t need to go through the same channels to justify the execution. I swear his new techniques are going to make this place a lot more efficient and my job a hell of a lot more enjoyable, and profitable.”
Donald saw the chief’s eyes glaze over and he assumed he was imagining his new life with all the treasures a 32% pay increase would bring. He became distant and vacant, and continued to stare into nothingness as Donald got back to work. It wasn’t until some busybody bumped into him on a mad dash for some stimulant to ween off the need for sleep did the chief snap out of his stupor and get back to his office.
That busybody was Arrow, and as soon as he was perked up and fully awake, he reported to his superior for the morning briefings. Donald sized him up and assumed that things went well the night before, but he figured the best way to further their bond would be to add a gentle pry.
“How did things go last night?”
“Oh gosh. I have no idea how I got up this morning. To tell you the truth, I had to just leave her there. I’ve never really done that before, but I left Nijuhachi there to make sure she didn’t sell all my stuff for junk or do some other insane thing that people do when they are left alone in a stranger’s apartment.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine.” However this point made Donald think back to his apartment, and wonder what his new companion was doing in his absence. He forgot to put up his alligator boots. He prayed for their divine protection. Just to make sure he made a mental curse for their protection. Perhaps a rejuvenation spell that would give them the alligator jaw strength to devour any animal that would try to soil them with ammonia filled micturition.
“I am so sorry about being so late. I promise it won’t happen again”
“Don’t worry about it, nothing usually happens this early anyways. To make it up to me, why don’t you go talk to the chief and find out what our assignment is.”
Arrow walked out of Donald’s office and immediately bumped into the man he was looking for. Donald stared in amazement. Hadn’t he left earlier? Or was he standing there the whole time.
“Ok boys, I just got a message from up high and this is a big one. You better not screw this up because this whole department is riding on this assignment. You are going to provide protection detail for this new utopia bringing messiah in the senate. We want to make sure that no rogue antiquates try to get him killed while he is pushing this referendum.”
Donald and Arrow loaded up their weapons and set out for the capital building. Donald watched Arrow and tried to check his nerves.
“You know, this might be the biggest assignment I’ve ever had. No pressure or anything, but do you really think a rookie like you can handle it?”
“Oh I’m not too worried. There haven’t been too many cases of public terrorist attacks from our prey. I’m kind of excited actually. If they come out into the open, it just makes our job that much easier.”
Donald was at once frightened by the lack of trepidation from his courageous counterpart, and simultaneously comforted and strengthened by his emboldened attitude. Arrow was right, this should be a cakewalk. This area would be swarming with secret service having to do all the dirty work. All they would have to do is set up some detection equipment, and go over some profiles to look for some typical suspects. None of that jumping in front of bullet malarkey that your mind conjures up when you think of bodyguards. Really, they would be like incredibly overpaid airport terminal security workers. Except instead of checking people for bombs or hidden weapons, they would be looking for vestiges of history tucked away behind their skin.
After they got everything all set up, they set their remote detection apparatuses so that they would inform them if any antiquates were at a checkpoint. They wanted to be as close as they could to their target of protection. They were sent to the oral chamber because their senator was going to make a speech soon about the bill he was trying to get passed. Donald looked over the crowd and noticed the large amount of young bodies spread all over with a small smattering of some older people in various sections. Donald noted the youth majority, and hoped that it would make his job easier in protecting the senator. Truly the poll tests were working. Similar to the poll tests that kept former black slaves from voting in the United States in the late 1800s, so too did the current laws make it difficult for the elderly to vote. After 45 they had to pay a special tax, and all voters had to take a test that was biased towards favoring the youth. They would have questions about popular celebrities that only the youth identified with and few elders could recognize. They also used modern input devices on the voting machines that young people could use with ease, but the old had trouble using without making mistakes. And all error votes were defaulted to younger candidates because it was considered vital for the improvement of the citizenry that functions of society that didn’t work such as error votes should be used to support those that do like modern aged candidates.
The senator finally appeared from the back and walked up to the center podium to make his speech.
“There is a hole in this nation. Millions of citizens are falling through the cracks and are unable to fit into this giant jigsaw puzzle that we conceive as our nation state. We have tried work programs for these people, but they don’t take to the work. We have tried welfare programs, but they drain too much on the people who do take to work. All these lost souls want is what their father’s have had before them but somehow they have all missed out on whatever their ancestors had that brought them to such success in the first place. My bill will lower the legal age to 60, remove the inheritance tax, and promote the budget of certain agencies that will help the transfer of wealth from those that are ready to pass on, to those that are unable to make it for themselves.”
A loud roar of cheers and applause filled the parliament, with scattered murmurs from a few senators, who themselves were approaching the 60 years of age outlined in the bill. The senator seemed to beam over the response and retreated back to his office to contemplate his next move. Donald and Arrow and the rest of the security detail followed him. He approached a large maple desk and took a seat in a fine leather chair.
“Hey you two, aren’t you from the AHD? What do you think about the bill, your chief personally just sent over 1000 dollars to my campaign. It could mean a lot to your continual success. Your department specifically has had some good numbers, which is why I personally requested a security detail from your division.” Arrow approached the man with that same ravenous look in his eyes that Donald noticed he gave when he was going to attempt something unorthodox.
“Thank you Senator. At first I thought I was a little overqualified for my position in the AHD, but with your increase of the pay grade, I might be able to eek out a living.”
“Glad to hear it son. Your work is incredibly vital to the lifeblood of this nation, if we had antiquates running around without any checks and balances, it would be chaos.”
“Its interesting you mention that sir, I was wondering what your bill had in mind for the increased testing of senators. Many of them have fallen through the cracks with their immunity to annual screenings that many other professions have to go through. In fact, some of our research indicates that their may even be some antiquates in high positions here in the senate, masquerading while passing bills that make antiquate existence even that much more difficult.”
“Now hear me son, I’ve spent a lot of face time down there in the pits, and I can assure you that those antiquate trash have not infiltrated the senate. We are very busy in our positions, and those screenings would be too much of an inconvenience and invasion of privacy for people like us that hold such important positions for this country.”
“It is interesting you mention that sir, because with some of the funding your previous bills have provided in the past, I was able to devise some new faster screening techniques that don’t need the level of information provided in the past. In fact I brought a mobile testing unit with me if you would like to try it out.”
“Well sure son, if these things work as good as you say they do, we might be able to mass produce these things. I know some constituents who would love to produce something like this. Bust her open, and let’s see how this thing runs.” Arrow dragged Donald over to the side and spoke in a low whisper.
“Donald, why don’t you take the rest of these goons outside. I don’t think me and Nijuhachi can work with all of them standing over my shoulder.” Donald took them all outside and assured them that it was a safe and fast procedure. Donald shot the shit with them for a couple minutes until he heard a large yell from the room. He tried to open the door only to find it barricaded. Donald heard a scream from the room and large crashes as two bodies banged around the room.
“He’s dirty Donald! He’s an antiquate!”
The rest of the security detail began to rush for the door. Donald whipped out his blaster and took out one of the men in the front. Before the rest could pull out their guns, Donald grabbed another and held his blaster to his head.
“Don’t move or he gets it. We are legally entitled to take the senator in for questioning. Please accommodate our investigation or I will have to withdraw him by force.”
One of the security men drew his gun and fired at Donald’s heart. He twisted away and held out his hostage to take the majority of the blast, but he could still feel a sharp pain in his left arm. He lost his strength and released his now dead shield and jumped into a corner and lay behind a pillar while laying out suppressing fire towards the guards. He heard some shots coming from the office and hoped that Arrow was ok. The guard detail reorganized and formed two teams. One team rushed the door while the other barreled towards Donald. Donald got a shot off at the one in front, but another was able to draw a bead on him and Donald saw a bright flash coming from the nozzle of his blaster. Donald momentarily flinched, but felt no pain, so he lined up his next shot and took out the other guard. He looked to see what happened to the other guards, but only found a pile of 3 bodies. One had a hole in his right chest, with the other a hole in the center of his chest, and the third with a gaping chasm where a heart should be. Judging from the wounds, Donald assumed that they must have been lined up single file to the door and their must have been some large blast that took out all three of them in one shot from some angle. He lined up the holes if the men were standing and realized that the blast that took them out should have gone right over to where he was hiding and fighting with the other group. He thought it was strange that something that terrible had missed him, but he didn’t feel any wounds besides the one in his left arm from the now dead guard’s weapon.
He knocked down the door and found Arrow unconscious slumped in a corner with Nijuhachi using some instruments to fix what appeared to be circular wounds from a blaster. He looked over to the right and saw the senator with a large hole where his neck should be, and noticed that his head was hanging off his body, barely held on by some sliver of a neck. Donald decided that it could have been done by Arrow’s blaster on a high setting and went over to make sure Arrow was ok. He had a couple of scars that were congealing after Nijuhachis precise and quick acting treatments fixed what appeared to be 3 holes from probably the senator’s blaster. He went back to the senator to look for his weapon and found one a few feet from his body. He checked the gun’s history and noted that it did indeed fire 3 times.
“Donald are you ok?”
Donald looked back to see Arrow recovering and lurching up into a stand.
“Once the senator saw the positive reading, he flipped out. He got the draw on me first and got 3 into me before I got him back. I heard you having a huge scuffle outside and a large force rushing for this office. I felt really tired and began to slip, but I tried to fire another shot at full blast before I lost consciousness.”
“Don’t worry Arrow, you did great. You took out three of them and probably saved my life. My god a senator Arrow. I had no idea the antiquates had already infiltrated this far. Thank god I’m going to retire soon, and you youth will be left with the task of cleaning up the mess.”
Donald called for a squad to come pick him and Arrow up. When they got back to headquarters they were greeted by an infuriated chief. Arrow struggled to pull himself out of the car, and the chief clocked him right in the face while screaming obscenities at him knocking him back into the car. Donald rushed the chief and restrained him from hurting Arrow any further.
“My god chief, he just took 3 shots in the line of duty. Get a hold of yourself.”
“THAT SON OF A BITCH. MY DREAMS ARE OVER. HE KILLED MY GOLDEN GOOSE. I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT. DONALD I WANT YOU TO WATCH THE SECURITY TAPES AND FIND OUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.”
“But chief, I already gave you my report. All the facts checked out with Arrow’s story.”
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY NO LONGER A TEAM. I AM HAVING THIS STUPID SON OF A SUBMARINER SENT TO SOME HARD KNOCK DEPARTMENT WITH REAL INITIATIONS. THE KIND YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT, EVEN IN PSYCHE, BECAUSE THE MEMORIES REVERT YOU BACK INTO THE MADNESS THEY BEAT YOU INTO.”
“Chief calm down. I’ll go over the tapes. Just leave Arrow alone for now. Here take the keys to my château. You can enjoy my nice place for a while without having to murder me in my sleep and stealing it from me ok?”
This placated the chief, and he snatched away Donald’s keys and sped off toward the luxury and decadence that his pay grade couldn’t afford.

Ch. 9
Arrow was sent off to a hospital, which was mainly a formality, because Nijuhachi had already done such a bangup job of fixing him up. At least they would force him to rest, inducing him into a small coma so that his body could fully heal. He watched the tapes several times, but it always turned out just like Arrow said it did. The test ran smoothly, it read positive, the senator saw the reading, and reached for his blaster and got off 3 shots before arrow left a parting shot that partially severed his head from his body. In fact, the shot did so much damage, that when Donald did the autopsy on the corpse to confirm Arrow’s test using the old Himmerman Jey technique, there was no more upper spinal cord to take a reading from.
“A shot after my own heart. So much confidence in your diagnosis, that you remove all shred of doubt. That’s how we used to get the job done right. If the law wasn’t on your side, you made damn sure you fixed the scene so that it was.”
Donald spoke his internal monologue out loud to entertain whoever was having to watch him watch videos for hours and hours. Some people would think it superfluous to have security cameras in an office whose primary duty was ensuring the safety of others. But the now defunct Department of the Redundancy Department had left its mark on the way this country was run, until a perpetual loop of watchers who watched watchers who watched watchers collapsed on itself unable to survive on its circular energy of mistrust and self taxation.
Similarly Donald was stuck in a loop, watching the same frames continually until watching it backwards was similar to forward. His favorite was watching the 3 men taken down by that singular blast and watching that dumb sap miss him even though he was at point blank. It was at a bad angle though, and Donald couldn’t see the bullet hole behind his head in order to determine how close he was to meeting his end. Maybe if he slowed it down he could catch the bullet trail and figure it out systematically. He watched the projectile escape the man’s blaster, watched the trail and looked closely for the path of it past his head.
“Ok 6 inches away, 5, 4, arggh this is too slow let me speed it up.” He got past what he assumed was where his head would be at that point, but when he looked at the screen he couldn’t see the trail anymore.
“What the Hell, lemme try this again.” He inched it along until he got back to that point. 4 inches, 3 inches, then suddenly some bright flash filled the screen and the trail disappeared.
“Impossible, I should be dead. The shot didn’t miss me at all, it went straight to my face and exploded into billions of pieces that should have contained splatterings of matter that were once linked to form this disheveled heap I call a face.” Again Donald tried to be dramatic to show the security men his shock. Similar to how when he would forget his keys, he would make sure to slap himself in the head as hard as he could, rather than just turning around, so that someone wouldn’t think he just left some microscopic bomb there and was retreating to safety. No, show physical idiocy in order to assure everyone that everything is safe.
He got the tape back to the point of impact. The pieces of the projectile slowly began to form into a dart of death. And there it was. His savior. Some kind of metal shield. Like a sphere. He went for the control panel to change to a different angle. There was some kind of flying spherical object that flew almost invisibly quickly. But there it was, the same old familiar robot that had driven smaller men to madness with its blathering and lack of distinct facial features to convey the emotions it was feeling. Nijuhachi flew like a heat sinking missile to catch the shot. Donald realized what must have happened.
“Arrow didn’t get off a lucky shot. This damn robot must have some sophisticated hardware besides what he lets on. He flew through the door, 3 men and stopped the blast to save me from certain death. Thank god I massaged his ego now and then.”
Donald paused for what he assumed was an applause from the security bureau. He immediately thought of the chief. He may have had selfish motivations, but the result was the same. Arrow was dirty and that orbital frame with him was not just a punch card reader that could reconstruct a heart valve. He was something entirely militant. Luckily Arrow was assuredly unconscious right now, and it gave him time to get back to the chief so they could come up with some plan of attack. He hailed the quickest taxi that could speak audible English, and after 5 tries he found one that got him out of the station post haste.
Donald raced back to his home. He thought about the time he spent with the chief. There had been a friendship there at some point, but between the power struggles and gap of intelligence between the two, they had drifted apart. However the thought of him in danger was making him tense and almost guilty, like the knot in your stomach that forms when the opposite team’s best forward jams his ankle. Your happy he’s out of your way, but you feel such a loss that such an amazing talent was snuffed out. And there are no robot ankles to fix things in the future. WTF.
Donald jumped out of the taxi as soon as he reached his destination. He threw the cab driver more money than he deserved and was grateful for the speed of delivery. There was his car in good shape, and the house looked all right. He could here loud sounds blaring, as if the chief was fully immersing himself with his entertainment systems. However they almost sounded feminine in quality, and Donald knew something must be up. The chief would go berserk on anybody that tried to bring delicate charms into the office, and the soap opera like music coming from the home belied that someone else was in control.
He came in quietly and went for the sound. He saw a body in a heap in his favorite chair. It was the chief. He looked happy though, his face wasn’t twisted into some contorted death shriek. It was slumped though, and when he checked his vitals there was no sign of life. Suddenly the entertainment center shut off and he spun around to see some naked woman holding the remote.
“Oh thank god you’re here. I called 911 and they said they would send some one over quickly, but I’ve been here at least 30 minutes, so I got bored and turned on a show. I’ve had men fall asleep on me before but never die.”
Donald drank her up like a tall glass of water. He couldn’t believe the audacity of the chief to bring a call girl to his place, and on his favorite chair. He took back all of the fond memories he had recollected earlier.
“It’s ok miss, go get some clothes on. I’ll deal with this.” Donald reached for his phone to call in the paramedics, but he felt a touch on his shoulder that caused him to jump.
“You know, he paid for the entire night. If I go home early, my boss is not going to be happy with me.”
Donald contemplated the thought and looked the girl over. Something seemed familiar about her but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He finally looked at her face and was reminded of Arrow for some reason. When a look of recollection washed across his face the woman panicked and pulled a weapon from her back. Before Donald could react little Ignacious lunged at her ankle from underneath the chair. She screamed in pain and shot the animal. In her confusion Donald jumped at her and wrestled the gun free from her arms. Suddenly she wrapped her legs around him and attempted to dig her nails into his neck, but Donald pulled the trigger and her grip released and Donald broke free.
He looked at the poor dead dog. Some vestige of its true mind must have resurfaced, and man’s greatest friend fulfilled its design, despite the perversion it had lived through. Donald couldn’t figure out whom to mourn more. His dead chief, the beautiful naked woman, or the cute animal that had left one more hot pile on his rug before it had given its life for his safety. Donald wasn’t the kind of man that liked to drop on his knees and cry out in agony over his loss. He went over to the chief and checked his body for nail marks. On his back were some depressions. Donald guessed poison. That would explain the heightened sensation of ecstasy the chief expressed on his countenance even after death, but maybe that came from being with such a beautiful woman in a beautiful home with a beautiful entertainment center blasting out the best shows an agent could afford in the most beautiful definition the crystals could display. Donald again lamented the loss of the beautiful woman, and finally let a tear shed for his dog. He cleaned up the crap and buried the dog. He searched the house looking for woman’s clothes. He couldn’t find any, but he did find a carpenter’s outfit. Damn Chief you dead kinky bastard. Carpentry? Was there something there? Was he trying to nail her? Did he need her to tack down some wood? Polish a door knob? Did he want to get hammered with a beautiful woman? He really was obsessed with building the home of his dreams. He searched the pockets, careful to not be pricked by some poisonous nail, not unlike the nails she wore on her fingertips, but instead found an address and a note.
It read, “Tell him to come here. Leave him alone, but get rid of the chief. He’s become a liability.”
Donald read the address on the note and programmed his car to take him there.
Showdown
Donald arrived at a large abandoned warehouse. It looked like the remnant of some old space factory. Loaded with the machinery of a program infinitely important to the fate of the world, but long since abandoned. There was Arrow’s ambulance outside, the driver and attendant dead. Donald locked and loaded. Then unlocked and reloaded and let out a loud and off-putting war chant to shake up anybody who might be inside waiting for him.
He walked inside and saw Arrow on the floor above him. He was unarmed and looked ready to make peace.
“I take it you got the message from Roxanne?”
“Well not really. She was kind of a prick. I’d send her regards but she’s lying in a puddle of blood inside my rapidly depreciating in value living room.”
Arrow looked a bit shaken. Donald couldn’t tell if it was from the news he had just given him, or from his lack of recovery from the 3 shots he had received earlier. Nijuhachi must have pumped him full of amphetamines because the drugs he was given earlier should have knocked him out for at least 24 hours. He looked like he was lapsing in out of slumber and hyperactivity.
“No matter. I thank you for coming anyways, despite my messengers’ overzealous attitude.” Arrow was missing some of his arrogance and youthful vigor. He appeared before Donald like a retiring pro baller, who could still dunk it and bring in the fans, but had to resize his championship rings because his fingers were aging into some less exuberant stature.
“I’m bringing you in Arrow. I don’t care if you iced the chief, I still think your dirty. Why did you do it?”
“Do what? The chief, or the politician? How bout I tell you both. The politician was upsetting a lot of my friends with his anti ageism legislation, so we rubbed him out before all the other upstart senators clung to his momentum and rode the popularity to pass some laws that could wipe them out.”
“Friends? I thought we were friends, Arrow. I don’t even know who you are anymore. First your robot saves my life and then your girlfriend kills the chief and then tries to kill me. I’ll never forgive you.”
“I apologize for her. Its always hard to get the young ones to do what you want. They are so impulsive. They may be easy to manipulate, but difficult to rely on to get the job done right. She didn’t really like you. I don’t know if she was jealous of my affection for you, or if she was just sick of old looking men.”
Donald felt flattered and offended at the same time. Lots of young women were attracted to him, but he always turned them down because he felt we would only leave them ultimately unhappy. And this last one proved his prophesy true.
“I think you know why we had to get rid of the chief. It was all in those videos. You’re the only loose end now. My superiors wanted you to suffer the same fate but I convinced them I could get you to come to our side.”
“What side is that? Assholes that manipulate politics and shoot puppies rather than spend time sleeping with their beautiful girlfriends?”
“The side of justice. The side of wisdom. The side of eventuality and eternity. I may appear like a young pup to you Donald but I’m hundreds of years old.”
“Ah the twistiness of it all! It tastes in my soul like the bitterest of lemony and lime twisted into a sour twist tie. An antiquate in the antiquate division! How could such opposite of expectations become reality! What an amalgamation of polarity of my normal conclusions!” Oh Donald you failure of a detective. Shame on you for not noticing.
“But how, how did you get away with it?”
“It was fairly simple really, The Himmerman Jay had a failure rate of 72%. I was part of the 28% the test failed on. I blame my bad posture as a child. And the rest of the tests I developed were all shams that were passed into law by the shadows we have set up in multiple parts of the senate. The hardest part was convincing you that the kid brought in on my first day really wasn’t an antiquate.”
“AH. Drat Again! How could I not have trusted my instincts!”
“Join us Donald. You are too bright a star to burn out so soon. You have much life let to live. Come to our side.”
“Side? Sides? There are no sides. There’s only one thing I believe in, and in my old age I have neglected it and passed on to the judgment of the youth that follow after me. But in this time of confusion it is the only thing I can rely on. I’ll take… my Sidearm!”
Donald quickdrew his sidearm and blasted a clean shot straight into Arrow’s face. Arrow shook his head in pity and disappointment, and Donald realized that the reason he was unarmed was because he had nothing to fear from this antiquated antiquate hunter. Nijuhachi had blocked the shot. Donald fired 6 more in rapid succession aiming at different sections of his body hoping to throw off the robot, but he blocked them all.
“I tire of this Donald. I gave you a chance, but now I realize my constituents were correct. You need to be exterminated.”
Arrow gestured at Nijuhachi and retreated to some unseen location. Nijuhachi began to transform into some giant seemingly organic energy cannon. It retreated back to wherever its master hid and Donald saw some blue light growing into something increasingly luminous, and when he heard a scream ring out he leapt to the side and as he looked back at his former location he saw a huge blue blast of energy extinguish every particle where he had been standing leaving a giant hole untraceable of its depth.
“Damn you! Stand still.”
Donald ran towards the area of his assailant as he heard the blue cannon recharge and felt the blue glow grow stronger. He spied what looked like a rocket and set it off. A blue glow shot at the missile evaporating it. Arrow let out another scream. Something was wrong, and Donald wasn’t going to waste time to take advantage of it. This time the pulse was glowing into a blood like purple. Donald heard a blood curdling scream, and this time the blast shot straight into the roof. He made it to the second floor and this time caught an eye glimpse of his assailant.
Arrow’s arm looked like it was a part of this giant cannon nijuhachi had grown into, but something looked wrong. Arrow appeared to the point of fainting and the color was turning into a sickly orange.
“What’s the matter Arrow? Didn’t anybody tell you you’re not supposed to mix uppers and downers when you’re trying to use your body to power a giant bioelectrical energy cannon?”
Arrow tried to respond to him with a final shot of his cannon but by now he was too far gone and it sizzled to a red flicker and dissipated as Donald shot him in the chest with his blaster.
Final Chapter
Arrow lay at the floor gasping, clutching at the giant hole in his chest made by the blaster. The robot fell free from its master’s grip, as he chose something more dear to himself to hold onto. The robot acted like it sensed something was amiss, and started to revert to its former, less violent incarnation. Donald started to examine the metamorphosis when Arrow caught his attention by spurting blood into the air as he spoke his last words.
“I wasn’t ready to go, why did this have to happen to me?”
“It was no fault of my own. Blame yourself, or God.”
Donald shot him again, this time in a more critical section of his physiology. This old specter of a long lost history disappeared from his seemingly fresh but ultimately timeless vessel. Donald felt sadness losing a friend who he thought he shared so much in common with. But just as he had realized when they first met, similarity rarely leads to compatibility. He started to make contact with the main office when suddenly the robot spoke out at him. Except it didn’t ring out in its old tinny, yet heartwarming mechanical shrill. This time it sounded colder, more collected and mature.
“Wait. Don’t do that. There is no one there that will help you. All of our people have control of the office, and if you phone them you will surely just be arrested.”
“What do you mean?”
“You put us in a tough spot. You knew too much, but I was certain you would join us.”
“What do you mean you? I’ve never seen you trusted with a task anything more important than what a highly sophisticated thermometer could do.”
“It truly is an amazing thing raising a child. You try to teach it everything you can, and you try to pass onto it all of your best qualities, but really you can only give it so much. Similar to a child, I have passed on my best instincts, reactions, memories and biases to this robot. In a way he is a vessel of my spirit, but he is also something new all together.”
“Arrow is that you? You backed yourself up in that thing? How is that possible?”
“No, I did no such thing. The complexity of the human mind and body is far too difficult a thing for me to try to emulate. I just tried to give this AI the best parts of me that I found would be useful. I had offspring, real offspring. They take so much of you, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t always be there for them when they have to think on their own. I have lost and created many children that have gone on to create scores more, but that was never enough for me. I couldn’t be satisfied with the small ebbs of my blaze that went on to create their own powerful firestorms. I wanted to stay there and continue to shape them forever. After my first son was killed for being an antiquate, I didn’t know what to do. Do you know what its like to lose something that you have bonded to for over 130 years? This robot though. The mechanics are a thing of the times, but his true essence, his mind, are something that can only be brought about from the parenting of hundreds of years.”
“This bucket of bolts is hundreds of years old? It looks state of the art.”
“Yes his body, his weapons. But I have sculpted his mind to be the perfect extension of my own, without the physical and social limitations of my own body. It will have no need for the physical propogation and sexual desires that my organic body could not sustain itself without. But this is where you come in Donald. You killed me and now my son has no one to guide and protect him. The true beauty of it all Donald, is you might need my seed more than it needs your light. You see, our organization has all of its bases covered. They wanted to get rid of you, but I convinced them that you would join us. My son truly admires you. You have all my heroic qualities, without my petty selfishness. He could sense a kindness and true appreciation of life, that was different from my instinctual yet effective need for longevity and procreation. I decided that I would put it up to a test, which is why I brought you here. If you beat me, than I would let you be the one to teach my offspring what it is to truly live as a man. However just in case I failed, which I did, the organization was going to do everything in its power to silence you.”
“Will they come here? Do you think you could transform into that amazing winged lazer construction again? If I had a weapon like that I could take down thousands of you decrepit old skinbags.”
“It’s not that simple. They don’t need to send anybody. They will simply use your psyche profile and trump up some false execution charges over that poor boy who demonstrated the loophole we used to get me into the system in the first place. Why anybody would so willingly destroy their own body with these stasis altering drugs is completely beyond me. They will ask for an early retirement, and they will get it. However I know something you don’t know, and if you promise to take care of my son, I can assure you it will be worth your while.”
“Look I already tried taking care of these stray dogs, and you blew up the last one. I really don’t think I’m cut out as a father figure.”
“I have the answer to the question everybody wants to know. It’s the single answer that drives all antiquates into hiding in the first place. What happens in retirement?”
“I always assumed they threw you in some home where you played croquet, and tried to eat yourself into in early grave with high fat content food with heaping side doses of cholesterol.”
“Probably. I’m sure they probably used to do that at some point. But not now. The people in charge are far more ruthless, cold, and calculating than even the most unfeeling of machines. If you agree to protect this steel extension of myself, I will let you in on some information that will spare you from the axe these people will bring down upon you.”
“Ok, ok I promise. But will you always be suffering me with long winded dialogues like this? I liked it better when you were this cute little automoton complaining about how no one gives you enough attention, or how none of the kids were willing to ride around on you like some supermarket arcade quarter cruncher. Was that really a façade, or is this extension of your personality truly dominated by thoughts of becoming a useful construct of robotic stereotypes?”
“I assure you I, er he, is much more sophisticated. In order for robots to be accepted, they have to be cute, or else people will be afraid that they will destroy them and replace them. But anyways here is how your retirement will go down. Everybody who enters retirement is interviewed by a priest, depending on your answer they will either kill you and process you into food or some other essential mineral, or they will give you life extensions and shoot you off into space, to do the real work our government is performing in furthering human evolution.”
“Wait, if you could just keep living in space, why didn’t you and all of your co conspirators just do that?”
“Just wait. You will get to feel for yourself what it feels like to have separation anxiety with your home world. I put up with it for decades before I found a way back. No planet is as nourishing and hospitable as our home Earth. No matter how much resources and time they waste exploring the universe, I guarantee you they won’t find anything even half as nice as our own true home. But, I invite you to try, and please take my son along, he is more suited for the space lifestyle than I ever could be. Just wait till you try to have sex in space, and maybe you will understand why I did everything in my power to come back.”
Donald agreed and took the new Arrow with him. He didn’t want to call it Arrow because that would be too confusing. He renamed it the Arrow MK-II, much to its objection, but Donald explained that he was its father now, and it had to obey his paternal decree. For fun, Donald made him turn into the giant atom smasher that had gotten so close to ending his life only minutes before. He aimed it at the lifeless corpse of Arrow and destroyed any trace of his existence. If he wanted to leave his mark on history, he would have to find some other way.
Donald went back to the precinct, and sure enough there was transportation there waiting to take him to his ultimate destiny. On the way he and MK-II practiced their interview answers. MK-II explicitly detailed that his answers must denote hope, health, and contain qualities of useful skills to their space program. He also said to watch out, because they used a lot of multiple choice. These priests had to see multiple people in a day, and they didn’t have enough time or qualified intelligence to decide on their own without a systematic schematical test whether or not to axe their applicants or shove them outside of the atmosphere. They took Donald to a confession booth where he was told to wait for several minutes until a priest arrived.
“The robot will have to wait outside”
“Be careful, if you leave him alone too long, he’s liable to talk your ear clean off.”
Donald kneeled in the booth and actually slouched into a sleep from his unaccounted for exhaustion. He didn’t know how long he was out for, but he was awoken by the sharp rap of a sliding door.
“Hello my son. All of god’s children’s must be asked at some point to take their leave of this world, and leave its bounty to those of our children. Do you have any confessions to make, before you face your fate?”
“Yes I would like to state that the educational board had me ranked 37 on the nation scale out of a rank of 1000. I completed my doctorate and federal service training and served 32 years. I would also like to state that if I ever went up against an alien, my blaster would turn it into space dust before it could even begin to send out a telepathy about wanting to meet my leader.”
“My my, son that is interesting, but I meant something more like a message for your children. Some last parting advice to let them know all you had learned that you didn’t want them to have to repeat.”
“I left behind no children, and I still have a strong desire to leave my mark on this universe. If I had children I would tell them to not die, as they can only gain more knowledge by continuing to live.”
“Hold on my son, your answers are quite puzzling, and I must confer to a higher power to understand what to make of you.”
Donald felt that this was going well, he managed to flip it around and avoid the multiple choice portion all together. It was a good thing too, because he often second guessed himself or was deceived by highly veiled double speak that took advantage of the excited state of nervousness your mind undergoes in times of great stress. The priest returned, or it seemed like he returned. This priest seemed to carry more authority, so maybe it was one of his superiors. It was hard to make out through the tiny holes in between their two chambers.
“The word from up high tells us that you are not ready to go, similar to a spirit that is returned to its body after seeing the light of heaven and being told by a long dead relative that his time has not yet come. Tell me, what do you believe is the purpose for god investing such great power into the hands of man?”
“Wow. That is pretty heavy for one man to answer. I always just did my best day to day. I don’t think I can answer that, but I can tell you this, if I continue to exist, I will be a lot closer to that answer than if I return to nothingness.”
“Please step outside and follow the white uniformed man to your next destination.”
Donald stepped outside and as the priest walked out of his chamber, he made a signal to a white uniformed man by sticking out two of his fingers. Donald pulled Arrow MK-II aside and asked him what the “2” meant.
“Well one of them means the death chamber, and one of them is the space chamber. I have a hard time memorizing things when they are in pairs. Like was the space the one that was 1, or was it the one that was two. Sometimes I come up with witty songs like, space is the ace which is number one. But I couldn’t tell you if I made that up right now, or if I had really memorized that a long time ago.”
“So wait, you mean you don’t know if I passed! Good God, MK-II turn into that atomizer again, we need to blast our way out of here.”
“Calm down, I’m pretty sure that the “2” is a good thing. I mean they kill most of the applicants, so you would think they would pick “1” for the signal they use the most. “2” probably means you are something different.”
Donald couldn’t believe he was going to let the fate of his life rest on such simple logic. But deep down he knew he couldn’t live like the people he had spent most of his life hunting. He had served the nation his whole life, and this time he would let it serve him. The white uniformed man approached him.
“Please follow me sir. Are you sure you want to have that robot with you? There is no next of kin or charity you would rather leave it to?”
“No its ok. He couldn’t live on his own without me anyways. I’m afraid the poor thing would self destruct. And I don’t mean develop a drinking problem or start making razor blade cuts on his leg, I mean like detonate an explosion that would leave black soot all over your face, but leave no real damage or burn scars.”
The attendant decided he did not want to see how he would fare as a cartoon caricature of violence, and led the man and his robot wonder to a small white room that left little room but to hold a robot in his lap. The attendant restrained Donald into a heavily supported chair and exited the room, fastening the door behind him. It sounded air tight, Donald couldn’t decide if it was the kind of air tight you would need for a gas chamber, or that of a pressurized cabin embarking on a long journey. Donald heard no countdown and felt no motion. He began to panic and worry that maybe it was a death chamber. But it looked so clean he assured himself. Surely people leave some kind of gross remnant behind to let others know that something horrible had happened to them in there. He glanced down at his motionless companion and began to ask him how he felt about…THUMP. Donald felt a huge pressure exerted all over his body and he blacked out.

Epilogue
“Doctor. Doctor. Can you hear me?” It was Arrow MK-II’s voice but something about it sounded different. More sharp, more clear.
“MK-II, did you get a speaker enhancement?”
“No Doctor, but I think you did, can you see clearly?” Donald came out of his groggy state and was able to see the clear single detail of the white surrounding all around him. He made out all the fine details and intricate pieces that made up the interchangeable robot body that MK-II shifted around to form the tools he needed for any task he was capable of. Donald had always had strong vision and defined color recognition, but everything looked sharper.
“So this is what it is like to be dead. I swear I feel so good. I don’t know what everybody is so worried about. I haven’t felt this good since I was 22. I didn’t think they would let you robots in heaven. Something about false idols I felt applied to you mockeries of the human condition. Maybe I am in hell. They probably decided I lived an empty unfulfilling existence, so I would have to spend the rest of eternity with a dumb robot like you, instead of some beautiful vivacious woman. And they renewed my senses, so they could be dulled again by your incessant droning. I mean I deserve it, I have blood on my hands. I served my directives the best I could and I empathized with them totally, and they told me it was the intention of god. But I am paying the price now, I killed all those people and here I am stuck in hell with a stupid robot.”
Donald began to weep and cupped his hands over his face to hide his shame. He felt the soft caress of his own hands and noticed how smooth they felt. He wiped away his tears and looked down on his massive paws and noticed they no longer had the deep set veins that used to pop out at him and scream menacingly at him, “these hands had done all the work they needed to do”. Instead they looked fresh and vibrant, ready to assemble and deconstruct all the goals that their owner intended for them.
The door to the room opened, and a man walked into the room, with a cool beverage and a warm sandwich.
“I am sorry for taking so long. I like to give our new residents some time to adjust after undergoing such a traumatic journey and procedure. One time I walked on a man to soon, and in a moment of insanity he bit me. Look right here, I still have the teeth marks.”
The man held out his arm for Donald to see closer, but there was no need. Donald’s newly enhanced senses had picked up on the stranger’s aberrations the moment he had walked through the door.
“That looks bad, luckily for you, I spent a portion of my life as a vegetarian.”
“Oh good, that should make it easy for you to get used to the food here. We can’t waste resources on raising animals, so you will have to get used to eating synthetic meat, which hopefully due to your history won’t require as much of an adjustment.”
Reality set in upon Donald. MK-II was right, the priest had given the good signal, and here they were in space. Donald felt the renewed energy of youth and quickly realized the strength within himself that had made the antiquates so difficult to catch. He immediately felt remorse for the cruel things he had said to MK-II, and like a father attempting to rekindle the relationship that had been bruised by a disciplinary beating, he embraced his robot progeny.
“I’m sorry MK-II, I didn’t mean all that. I really am looking forward to forging a new life with you out here in the limitless freedom and bounty that the universe will offer unto us and we will in turn reap its stock with both hands, or in your case probes or something.”
“It’s ok Doctor. I know you have a compassionate heart. Do you really think we will find out here, the true meaning of existence that countless generations of great men like my father on our home planet had failed to realize?”
“Sure we can. They may have had their own inspirations, but the key difference between us and them is that they are dead and we are alive. As long as we are alive, we will have the chance to keep trying, and if that isn’t enough of a meaning to life, than I’m glad our leaders have implemented all of those kill chambers to get rid of the dead weight that is dragging down the rest of us that are still fighting.” MK-II looked back at his new father with eyes of hope that were met with a gaze that inspired the will to carry on for thousands of years to come. The man that brought him food stared at the two of them like an artist trying to capture such a touching tableau into the deep reaches of his mind, ready to be plucked back again to be thrown onto a canvas and sold at a gala.
“That was quite touching. Your record indicated that you would function best in medical or regulation, but I think I am going to additionally recommend you for inspirational thought training.”
Donald liked the thought of an additional title. Now that he was young again, he would have to work to gain several new titles. He decided he would not rest until he became Special Thought Director Medical Doctor Third Class Brigandier General Scott Dennis Michael Donaldson. He then realized that he had to think for two now and came up with the title he would love his new son to evolve into. Alpha Omega Zetta Arrow Mark-II Epsilon. He only wished the universe was big enough to hold the title he envisioned himself gaining as he would go about conquering the galaxies. Perhaps it would have been better if he had grown old and died on earth, but with limitless potential at his fingertips the universe would bear the mark of man branded across its hide with the letters STDMDTCBGSDMDAOZAMIIE tattooed there for eternity.

Electric Light Orchestra

Many of you probably wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking, god I love that happy tree guy, Bob Ross, I just wish I could enjoy his soft beauty without the distraction of artistic outlets like paintings and rather experience soft technic music accompanied by powerful lyrics acted out by cheap actors performing classic storylines in pantamime. Well luckily for you, you came here and you get to watch ELO’s video confusion.

Many of you have probably heard one of the songs from this legendary band and probably thought they were a bunch of brothers from the 50s or skinny shaven men dressed like barbershop quartet crooners. Most of the time you would be right, but in this case your guesses are hideously miscast and instead you can gaze on reality and see the truth forever.

If you are wondering, hey he seems lost, or WTF the synchs all over the place, consider the lyrics. The lack of synce is a metaphor for the lapse of communication we feel by having to share our love over the phone rather in the reality of face to face communication. Just as the delay in his lips affects the video, so does impersonal communication hinder our interactions and limit our relationships.

This is one of my favorite songs of theirs, as part of arguably their best album, Discovery. Similarly I discovered this band because of the powerful japanese show Densha de Otoko or Train Man. Their greatest song is played in the opening credits.

Seraphim Falls

So there is this overused term that goes something like deus ex machina. Its some latin way of saying something so simple that it has to be worded in a dead language to add pretentiousness. Deus is god, machina I suppose is machine, and ex has something to do with grammar, which is not the woman who bakes you cookies and empanadas, but some way of structuring a dead language a certain way which is pointless because people don’t speak it anyways. So typically these god machines are these things that come out of nowhere and piss you off but the writer and editor loves them because they are able to push the plot forward. Here comes a long a gritty super realistic movie that has some of the best survival action sequences since First Blood. This movie has so many god machine plot savers, it actually begs the question, is it still random if it happens over 6 times? It starts to feel more like a dante exploration through hell than contrived plot explosions that move the story forward. at least 7 seperate times in the movie a major character gains or loses a horse. Its like their scenario writer walked out on the first day after putting in, “lose or gain bullets, lose or gain horse, use this to explore character and push forward plot.” 70% of this movie is finding bullets, losing bullets, stealing horses, killing horses, buying horses, and explaining why horses are more vital than working legs. Liam Nielson’s character would have no character development without actively interacting with his and other people’s horses. This movie is less an exploration of the loss of humanity through seeking revenge, and more of a guidebook for 1001 and one (so I suppose that would be 1002) ways to shoehorn horses into plot twists and character shocks.
A lot of people don’t like the ending, but the movie leads up to it well, and if you were really paying attention to how random the situations Pierce Brosnan were thrown into, then the surreal ending shouldn’t seem so left field.
Speaking of Pierce Brosnan, while some may say he has explored the fullest of his acting potentials in this film, no one (or everyone, I don’t really know I don’t read other people’s reviews until I write mine) has mentioned his complete control and master over the growth of all forms of hair. Where it be his pedo moustache from The Matador, or his bathing suit physique in Mrs. Doubtfire, or his well groomed coiffure as 007, nothing compares to the fiery power of the beard he put on for this role. Could it be makeup? Possibly, but look at his stomach and chest during the fire scene (its not gay, its hair research, the manliest and most heterosexual thing a man can do).

I am not the only one impressed by this scene, this was the third screenshot that popped up in google images. You will notice there isn’t a square inch that isn’t covered. If you look at stops at his shoulders, which is a little offputting when you consider how much effort they went into to make him look gritty and dirty. But get a blu ray copy of this movie and really check out the beautiful white explosion in his beard, and you will truly understand why they let him kick liam neeson’s ass so bad in this movie.

Awesome songs made better by japanhancement

Top Gun made better by things more triangular, life faces and robots.

One of Pink Floyd’s more indecipherable songs explained with subtitles and unnecessary addition of Chrono Trigger.

Robot Carnival receives a benefit from a pink floyd soundtrack.

Doing an anime music video of a Daft Punk song is like doing an Italian dub of a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti western.

A game famous for its airships gets the zeppelin treatment.