KlurgSheld

When you have the world’s attention, make the most of it.

“Cascade”
by P. Orin Zack
[5/13/2008]

It had all come down to Irwin’s own testimony. Five nightmarish months of a high-profile court case in which his life was laid bare like a laboratory exhibit and washed with stain that allowed only one interpretation: terrorist. And all because he’d suggested a use for some cash left over at the end of a tech conference.

He looked up from the bible beneath his hand, and then over at the judge. His throat was dry from sitting for so long beside his court-appointed lawyer, agape at the fabricated version of his life that had been reeled out by the prosecution. “I do.”

“You may take the stand.”

The state’s attorney, a white-haired man named Ralph Glendon, who had the bearing of a general and the guile of a used car salesmen, rose and started towards him. “Mr. Forrester,” he said calmly, “the court has heard a great many expert witnesses in this case. Some of them have spoken to your character… or lack of it.”

Irwin’s lawyer, a petite fireball named Susan Wright, rose partway out of her chair. “Objection. Conclusionary.”

“Sustained.” The judge cast a weary glance at Glendon.

“Others,” he continued, unabated, “have described the horrendous result of your actions. They have laid out, clearly and unambiguously, the details of how the river surge that you caused to be set in motion was responsible for the destruction of a major coastal city, a shipping port that suffered damage which was measured, not just in dollars, but in lives. What we haven’t heard, to this point, is why you did it.” (more…)

Act, don’t react.

“Call to Action”
by P. Orin Zack
[5/09/2008]

“It’s coded,” Flynn said in hushed realization, his finger arced towards the wall screen over the noisy restaurant’s bar. “I’m certain of it.”

Tony lowered his reuben and turned to look. An ad was running, the slick come-on for the former president’s newly organized mega-church. “What’s coded?”

“That ad. They’re using subliminals.”

The room was too noisy for either of them to hear the smarmy voice-over clearly, but like all good propaganda, the message was carried in the visuals as well. The pitch had started with a rousing patriotic rush of flags, jets and other emotionally freighted icons, interspersed with a thickening mélange of religious imagery, all of which coalesced into the church’s name and logo.

When the ball game resumed, Tony turned back and quietly took another bite.

Deep in thought, Flynn swirled a limp French fry through the last of the ketchup on his plate. “That montage…” he said idly. “That montage was far too busy not to have had some covert crap layered into it.”

“I don’t know. All I got out of it was a sudden yen to get all cuddly with the ex-pres. Not that he’s my type, or anything.”

Flynn grimaced at the image his friend had conjured up, and laughed. “Not that any man is your type, you mean. But that’s my point. It’s too effective. There’s something hidden in that pixel soup that burrows into your brain and fiddles with the controls.” (more…)

Being self-aware is the best defense against being manipulated by others.

“Insinuation”
by P. Orin Zack
[5/5/2008]

Corie Tarlner was livid. “How dare you use the cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocent people to jump-start that traitorous ex-president’s so-called ‘Religion of the Masses’!”

Corie had spent years piecing together the dark purpose behind the sequence of events and projects that the ruling cabal had contrived or underwritten for well over half a century. She wasn’t about to back down just because the trail led her right to the door of the self-proclaimed savior of corporate hegemony. The man quavering a few inches from her nose was hardly responsible for all the crap she’d uncovered, but he’d volunteered to speak for those who were. Barry Jurdens was the latest public relations flak to front for what Corie considered the worst brand of malevolence since Torquemada ran the Spanish Inquisition, and she had cornered him in one of the back rooms of a seedy sex shop he frequented.

“Miss Tarlner.” His voice was low, and tightly controlled. “I suggest that you refrain from making slanderous accusations. Or would you prefer to visit your family at a Federal Detention Center?” (more…)

What’s your personal hell? (This series of business stories on the aftermath of the Financial Meltdown started in “As Is“)

“Round”
(Part 5 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[05/01/2008]

Norwyn Rosset squinted into the painfully bright desert sky. “I wonder where they all ended up?”

He stood in the road for a long moment, trying to recall exactly where the contrails from the two planes that crossed paths overhead every morning would have met. But the skies weren’t so friendly anymore. Ever since the big meltdown, people couldn’t afford to fly for pleasure. They didn’t visit distant relatives, either. The one local TV station’s farewell newscast noted that the end of business travel had sealed the fate of the two remaining passenger airlines. Soon after that, the ancient air cargo planes that lumbered low over Lingman every morning had vanished, and with them, Norwyn’s lifeline to what used to be called the American Dream. It had been weeks since he’d seen a plane in the sky, and he could only imagine where they’d all been mothballed. (more…)

Ever wonder why you suddenly feel dizzy for no reason?

“Disoriented”
by P. Orin Zack
[4/25/2008]

“I hate it when that happens.”

Jordan Flemke was far too familiar with the shock of having his attention snatched from the warm numbness it had burrowed into to let it also shatter the dream he was in. But there was still something disconcerting about coming awake to the sight of the ground rushing up at you. (more…)

Get involved. You’ll be surprised at the results. (This sequence of Business short stories started in “Logical Conclusion“)

“Frachetti’s Challenge”
Part 12 of a series
by P. Orin Zack
[04/15/2008]

For most of Wobbly Banyan’s second set, Leo Agrolkin, fifty and graying, had been more than peripherally aware of the woman eying him from a table near the window. The distraction had an interesting side effect: his sax work was freer than usual. Which might explain why the crowd in this FW Diner was more engaged than those at the others the jazz band had played.

When they were finished, the manager thanked the musicians and invited the crowd to place their dinner orders. Leo, bowing to distraction, set his instrument down and slowly approached her. As he did, she laced her fingers on the table and smiled up at him.

“I take it you enjoyed the performance,” he said easily.

A subtle nod. “Yes. And the music was good, too. Care to join me for dinner? I’m buying.” (more…)

Look Deeper. What you don’t know may be far more interesting than what you do. (This series of business stories on the aftermath of the Financial Meltdown started in “As Is“)

“Face Value”
part 4 of a series
by P. Orin Zack
[04/12/2008]

“She told me it was a buzzerfly, Mr. Spordling.”

Ryan Svorlin smiled at Amathea’s latest mispronunciation, and set the clump of siskiyou blue he was holding into the hole she’d dug for him. He’d started re-landscaping the grounds of the enormous house he’d won in the L.A. mortgage lottery soon after burying its former owner. Gregory Davis’s smelly corpse was still hanging over the kitchen sink when Ryan opened the door for the first time, and he’d stayed in that spot as a local tourist attraction until a visiting former congressman offered to help plant the suicide in his own garden. Taking over a house, ‘as-is’, in the days after the big financial meltdown, could hold more surprises than it did when Davis was still scamming people with specious investment schemes. Happily, if you could call it that, the bloated debt-based market had finally had a correction large enough to put an end to the hegemony of the dollar, and life went on after a fashion.

“A what, kitten?”

Amathea looked up at him for a few seconds, and then pulled a clip from her hair. “A buzzerfly. Like this.”

The pattern on the thin plastic wings struck Ryan as a miniature, robed monk surrounded by a saffron glow, and tipped with rings of stars in a brown sky. While it was nestled along her braid rows, it had seemed as lifeless as Davis, but now, with its young owner flitting it over the plants in the box that sat beside her, it was more like an itinerant preacher spreading wisdom among the leaves. “What did your mother say was like a butterfly?”

“My name. She said this buzzerfly has the same name as me.”

A shadow crossed Amathea’s pretty brown face as she was clipping the butterfly back into her hair, so she turned to look up at the pale man that had stopped on the sidewalk beyond the bed.

“Excuse me,” the man said amiably, setting down his battered attaché case. “I’m looking for the Davis house. Is this it?”

Ryan rose. He began to extend a hand in greeting, but froze in recognition, and clenched it instead. “I know who you are, Conklin.”

“That’s great. Then you won’t mind my asking-.”

“Actually, I do, Peter. Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?” (more…)

Do you agree with all of the things you’ve signed? (This sequence of Business short stories started in “Logical Conclusion“)

“Signing Statement”
Part 11 of a series
by P. Orin Zack
[03/03/2008]

Leetha Berismont, looking all the prosperous artist she wasn’t, gazed right through the lean stranger having lunch with her, trying valiantly to hide her anxiety. She registered neither his pleasant voice nor the bright yellow jumpsuit enclosing the server who had just collected her plastic. Her feigned smile drooped uncomfortably. Regaining mental focus, she found that her right hand, which normally spent its days cranking out presentation graphics for her freelance gigs, was clutching at nothing, and that the grate of split nails against table had stilled his voice.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she said, self-consciously retreating. “What were you saying?”

Marlowe Swaine was a regular at the FW Diner, one of a dozen or so closet activists who had come out at the gentle urging of the staff. “Taxes,” he said. “You’d asked why they insist on taxing everything.”

She nodded, and glanced towards the entrance, where their server was handing the man behind the register her charge card. Like everything else at the newly bustling chain, the employees were dressed in prison theme.

Not so long ago, it wouldn’t have been possible to directly punish a corporation. But then the unthinkable happened. A federal judge ruled that corporations were to be treated as any other citizen, and the Supreme Court chose not to overturn it. At first, the business sector was overjoyed. But then the other shoe fell. (more…)

Getting involved is not always a choice.

“Puzzled”
by P. Orin Zack
[02/20/2008]

“I thought I’d find you in here.”

The stark white room was supposed to have been secure. But then, architecture at the Great Interdimensional Library always was more mind than matter. Ask anyone who accidentally found themselves wandering its halls during an especially vivid dream. Except that it wasn’t a dream. In some respects, it was more real than the places those dreamers had gone to sleep. In others…

Hilbran looked up from the tiny flag fluttering on the jigsaw piece squirming in his hand and turned around. “Which, of course, is why you did,” he said, annoyed at the intrusion. “Tell me something, Sev, does it ever bother you that your obsession with free will is contradicted by how the Library works? After all, that door behind you only manifested because you wanted to find me. Anyone who knows about this room would have come in from over there.”

Sev glanced at the animated puzzle piece in Hilbran’s hand, and then at the open hallway he was gesturing at across the room. Two people had just entered, a woman with gray-streaked hair and a much younger man carrying a leather case. “You needed a team this time? I thought dropping into a working reality and mucking things up was more of a solo gig.” (more…)

There may be more reasons that you know of to not hold your tongue.

“Magical Advantage”
by P. Orin Zack
[2/11/2008]

“We can’t allow them to do it,” the caped woman persisted, “we just can’t. Regardless of whether the royal spokesman’s ludicrous explanation is true, the destruction of Klinburn Tower was our only chance to break the cycle of repression. If you rebuild it for them… if the clique that bulldozed our constitution just replace their mile-high throne room with another just like it, we’ll never get the chance to regain control of our country, much less our lives. There’s too much at stake.”

It had been only three days since unseen hands had weakened the structure of the old tower, three days since it had mysteriously collapsed into a pile of rubble. Murmurs of a popular revolt had swept the country even as the massive dust clouds snaked their poisonous way through the streets of the capitol, but the press ignored them. The potent bribe of access to the royal suites was a more powerful intoxicant than the lure of being the first, and perhaps the only publication, to break a news story about a possible threat to the fledgling M’burto Dynasty.

Farber Gladstone, the ruling family’s chief architect, rebuffed his visitor’s desperate plea with an icy glare. “Surely, Magis Dorwyn, the location of the Emperor’s new chambers can be of no importance to people who wish only to see it brought down. I would have thought that its very existence would be more an affront to your party’s wishes than where it was.” (more…)