Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Santa Society Audio version

Okay, with Chapter 1 more or less complete, I've finished recording the audio version of the prologue, which will hopefully be easier for people to digest. I'll get the audio for chapter one completed as soon as I am able, probably tomorrow if I'm fortunate enough to have some spare time, and if I'm feeling awake enough! ;)

So here's the link to the playlist for the prologue: https://soundcloud.com/bob-swanson-3/sets/the-santa-society

And now it's almost midnight, so I'm off to go give my wife a new year's kiss. Have a happy and safe new year everyone!

Monday, December 30, 2013

The Santa Society - Chapter 1: part 3

The flight from Washington to Vermont took practically no time at all, and soon they were touching down in a small private airfield.

"This is one of the busiest days for travel, so we're going to take the back roads to get to the hospital," said the driver who had been sent to meet them.

They got into the cargo van, (the Organization didn't employ limos or limo drivers) and drove through the relatively busy streets to the Saint Thomas Memorial Hospital.

Grandma had been moved from the ER to ICU. Not because she was necessarily in any particular danger, the nurse had explained, but there was still a slight danger of the embolism in her artery causing further issue, and they wanted to be ready to remove the blockage as soon as they determined where it was.

Isaak didn't really understand most of this, but accepted the information and filed it away, preferring to talk to his grandmother, which he was told was fine, she was lucid, but not totally coherent.

Isaak's heart nearly broke when he walked in, and when she saw him she only smiled with half of her face, the other half remaining still. She motioned for him to come over and sit on her left side, the good side.

"It's good to see you," she said, her words slurred and distorted, as he sat down beside her bed. He wanted to reach out to her, but he was afraid of doing something that might hurt her. But just as he thought this she held her hand out to him and crooked her fingers in invitation. He smiled shaking his head and took her hand.

The first thought through his head, the first thing he wanted to say was, "I can't do what you want," which made him feel ashamed. His second thought, "How are you" just made him feel stupid. How the hell did he think she was?

So he struggled for a moment for something to say, when she said to him, "You've grown a beard."

He nearly laughed in relief and nodded his head, suddenly wanting to cry...

"It looks good, and you've been keeping it trimmed. Your father didn't really trim his when he had one... looked like a mountain man."

His father. That brought the whole thing back around again, because his father was one of the biggest reasons he left this life.

"Grandma," he started, but she cut across him.

"Do you know how I knew you were going to take my place one day?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I..."

"We were in the control room when I was teaching your older cousin how to do the job. You were six, I think, and you watched everything in the room as I explained."

He remembered, but only vaguely.

"By the time I was done, and testing him, you were looking at the proper controls before I had even finished the question. Then when you were nine, you talked your way out of trouble so often, I thought you were going to grow up to be a con artist. But mostly it was seeing you teach. I've attended some of your online seminars in jazz. I had no idea there was so much to it. What I saw you, yelling and screaming like someone had just said they don't believe in Santa, and those kids listened. Every single one. They hung on every word you said."

Isaak couldn't think of anything else to say after this, so he remained silent for a moment, but she continued right on. "Don't worry, your mother and your cousin will be more than capable of showing you how everything works now. You have nothing to worry about."

He didn't speak, just looked pensively at her, but she didn't seem to notice . She turned her head to the front again, leaning it back, then started snoring lightly. Her hand went slack in her hand,  but all the monitors showed that she was doing okay, so he got up I'm headed back toward the enterence the room holding his hand to his forehead and rubbing vigorously.
 
His mother was walking towards him in the hallway, looking is a she just got off to get something to eat. She caught sight of him and gasped with delight.  But before she could start her usual barrage of questions he cut her of.

"When she comes to, tell her that I'm giving her just this weekend. Nothing else.  just. this. weekend."

He  started off down the hallway and back towards is ride.

When Miriam poked her head around the corner she found her mother looking at her mischievously.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

The Santa Society - Chapter 1: part 2

The Sleigh was the first of ten high-priority delivery planes that were used primarily during the holiday season for a number of different purposes, from toy shipments, to perishable foods, to high priority passengers such as returning veterans, sick children, and people who couldn't afford to reach their families.

The other planes were named after the eight classical reindeer and Rudolph. To maintain anonymity when people who could not afford airfare, or vets, or anyone that the society deemed worthy were told that they would be getting free airfare they were told that it was the "airline" who was taking care of it, but not to let anyone know because they didn't want everyone asking for free rides.

They were used year round, though never as heavily as the holiday season. The Sleigh was generally reserved for company use, and only pressed into service when none of the "Reindeer" were available, even so it was only used when absolutely necessary, when time was a big factor.

Like now apparently.

Isaak had never had a reason to go into the airports private hangar section, and finding the right way through the maze of little roads was difficult even WITH the GPS to guide him. The mapmakers, and those who created the little codes that showed the shortest distances, probably didn't consider these wide open concrete oceans to be anything as formal as a "road."

But eventually Isaak found his way to private hangar 217 where sat the relatively small private jet, painted to look like Santa, sitting on a sleigh in a night sky, with a sack of toys at his back. Isaak rolled his eyes, but couldn't help a small grin.

He also noticed that there were what looked like a second pair of engines carefuly mounted next to the originals, but they looked kinda weird. The cowlings weren't painted at all, so they clashed with the originals, and they were only about one third the size.

"Electrical," said a voice from behind him, as he leaned in to get a better look.

He whipped around to see a blonde, slightly balding man watching him. He smiled, and put on a look of mock confusion, pointing at the man, clearly the pilot, and said, "Hammy right? Wait, no... Hambone?

The man chuckled. "Oh, I'm not giving you any help on this one. Sink or swim time for you."

Isaak smirked, saying, "Story of my life... Hammond." He had always known the pilots name, but liked to have fun with him too. "Wait," he said. "Did you say electrical?"

Hammond grimmaced and nodded. "NO idea how it works really. Something about charged particles getting sucked in one end, and pushed out the other. I think they called it an electrostatic turbine?" He shrugged. "Someone's doing some kind of Kickstarter, 'you-know-who' is supporting it, so suddenly, we're testing a couple of these things."

"And?" asked Isaak. "How have they been working?"

Hammond shrugged. "They won't get you off the ground, but it'll move you along while you're in the air. Eats through batteries like a fat man through oreos."

"Really? How much power does it take?"

"Eh, nine-volt battery."

Hammond joined Isaak, snorting at that joke, but then shook his head and nodded toward the cabin of the plane. "It's prolly gonna be a couple hours or so before we can get clearance, so might as well wait inside...."

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Santa Society Audio version Prologue part 1

Okay, so yeah this is a little cheaty. But it's been pointed out to me that I post SO MUCH that it's hard for people to keep up with. So I figured that an audio version would be easier to digest, and people can listen while they're doing other things. I'll post more soon, I'm going to try to record the rest of the prologue then post it as soon as I can. Also I HAVE ENABLED DOWNLOADS so you can listen to this on your mp3 player, or phone or whatever. 

Monday, December 23, 2013

The Santa Society - Chapter 1: The Prodigal Son

It was 7:30 Eastern Time when Miriam called Isaac. However, in Seattle it was only 4:30, which meant that the final Jazz Orchestra practice of the Puget Sound Jazz Observatory was just about to come to a close, before breaking for Thanksgiving.

Rhythms floated around and past each other, dancing and skittering, jumping up and down, and then somehow seemingly sideways. Some sections were featured at different points of the song well the other sections provided rhythm and a stable backbone on which the other parts floated along, while the percussion played five finger fillet with the melody,  threatening to slice it open as it danced just out of reach.

The guitar, a green Gibson hollow body, with the most smooth and natural sound that anyone has ever heard, was about to embark on a soulful journey when suddenly a peice of chalk flew through the air and clanged off the bell of the alto sax, bouncing off at crazy, nearly impossible angle where it hit the bell of the tuba , before spiraling into the spit filled depths.

The music ground to a halt and the tuba player groaned and set his tuba on the floor resignedly, sighing, "Not again..."

The alto sax player's eyes were wide, and trying to look anywhere except for the front of the room where there stood 31 year old bubbling furnace of rage,  which was currently staring her down like a drill sergeant who had just been called "Mom."

When nothing seemed forthcoming, the guitar player slowly raised his hand and said tentatively,  "Uh...  Mister Weber? Uh..  Wh -" 

"Alex," Mr Weber snapped suddenly. "What mode were we just playing in?" 

Alex checked his sheets.  "Lydian mode sir." 

"And what happens if you play a major mode with a flat and 7th? Class?" 

"Myxolydian mode sir."

"And does mixolydian mode sound good in the composition that we were playing a moment ago?"

"No s-"

"WRONG! It sounds freaking fantastic when you want to inject a little bit of melancholy and a bittersweetness into a composition. It's  heartbreak for people don't have time for heartbreak but need to have the feeling anyway. It is an amazing MODE... when done with intent." 

He paused moment to catch his breath and to let them catch theirs.

"BUT WE ARE IN THE FREAKING LYDIAN MODE UNTIL I SAY OTHERWISE!"

Everyone jumped in their seats as Mr Weber raised his baton again,  speaking in a loud schoolteachers voice, "Okay then, from the beginning-"  groans filled the practice room.  "One and two an-"

His mobile phone rang. Everyone gasped.  Mr Weber's No-Phone policy was the stuff of legend, and sometimes nightmare.

But Isaac knew there were only two numbers he allowed to reach him at any time,  and both knew better to call him this early in the afternoon... Unless...

"Alright we're done for the day. Get going. Shannon GET that scale mode DOWN, or so help me... " He let the threat hang, but curled his hand into a claw and shook the back of it at her menacingly.

She looked frightened, but eager at the same time. "Yes Mr Weber."

"Thank you!" He said with overstated relief in his voice.

He grabbed the still ringing phone and ducked behind a section of mobile sound baffling.  He picked it up just before it went to voice mail.

"Mom?" He didn't mean for his voice to come out hard and harsh, but his emotions always ran a little high right after rehearsal.

But she didn't seem to notice. "Isaac," she began. She sounded like she was going to berate him for a moment, but she was always better at shifting gears than he was.

Then just before she spoke again she gave a great sniff if her nose, and Isaac realized from years of experience that his mother had been crying. 

His mind jumped ahead several steps. "Grandma... she's not d-" He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought, but his mother cut him off.

"No she's-" He had the impression she was trying not to say the words "not dead" as much as he was trying not to think those words. "She's just had... an episode. The doctors used the term CVE or CVA, but I don't-"

"A cerebrovascular event, or accident," said Isaak, who realized he watched WAY to many hospital dramas, but was thanking House MD at the moment. "Grandma had a stroke?"

"Is that what that means?" said his mother distractedly. "I had thought so, the way she seemed when I brought her into the hospital... she couldn't speak without slurring, she could only smile on one side, and... " she hesitated, clearly trying to maintain her composure but still sounding a bit forlorn when she said, "She couldn't remember my name..."

"Oh, god, Mom, I'm sorry... is there anything I can do?"

She took a deep breath and regained her composure. "Yes," she said simply. "She's asked for you."

Isaak froze. This could only mean one thing, and it was the thing he had been dreading since his grandmother turned 75 or so... "What do you mean?" he asked cautiously. 

"You know exactly what I mean Isaak."

He groaned softly. "But Mom-"

"No 'buts,'" she said. "She told me to send The Sleigh to get you."

Isaak blinked at that for a moment. "Wow," he mused. "She really is serious."




Creative Commons License
The Santa Society by Bob Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://billyuno.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-santa-society-prologue-part-1.html.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Santa Society - Prologue part 4

And on that day something magical happened. Niclause and Klause discovered that together they had something special. If they gave something away, even if it was only to a few people, everyone wanted to buy it. And they bought more than they would need, just so that they could give it to their friends and family.

After only a few days the bakery was so busy that Niclause had to hire people to help with the selling of his goods, and with some of the baking of the more basic items. He shared his good fortune with Klaus and the two of them became partners in the bakery. Klaus, for his part was the face, and the spirit of the operation, and went around to different villages giving away spiced shortbread biscuits like the ones that made people love Niclause's cooking in the first place. People came from hundreds of miles away then, to get more of Niclause's fine baked goods.

Eventually, when asked, and if the baker was far enough away, Niclause began to sell his recipes to those who asked, if they could prove they were a baker, and if they were far enough away. When asked the secret of his success, he would always tell them the same thing: Give some away. At first they would scoff, and laugh, but they as they tried to run their own shops, they found that those who followed the advice prospered, and those that did not, fell into obscurity.

And as the years went by, both Niclause and Klaus became centers of the community, and a central part of the Winter Festival in that region. For weeks beforehand Niclause's bakery took orders and baked practically around the clock getting food ready.

Klaus meanwhile was asked to put in appearances as Saint Nick, which eventually simply changed into Saint Klaus, all over the region, hundreds of miles away. When he did he brought cookies and cakes from Niclause's bakery as gifts to children, and soon other businesses were getting into the spirit as well. Children soon began to receive not only pastries, but candies, fruits, and meat pies, as well as clothes and shoes, but probably most notably, and certainly most successfully: Toys.

However it soon became impossible for Klaus to make as many appearances as he would like, so he had to hire impersonators to go to different places and fill in for him. He required that they act as he would act, taking an interest and joy in the people there in the places they went, and he had people who would report to him on whether the Saint Klaus had been naughty or nice. When people asked how he could be in so many places so quickly he replied jokingly, "I have a team of Magic Horses that fly me from place to place."

And as even more years went by the feast became known as the Sinterklaas feast, a play on words, meaning Winter Man, but also including Sint Klaus who had taken on a central role in the holiday. Niclause in the meantime had organized many of the bakeries, clothes makers, grocers, candy makers, toy makers, and other businesses, and formed a group who, in secret, helped to provide for all those who didn't have enough, all the poor and homeless, all those who could not help themselves. They called themselves the Sinterklaas society, and every year they used the festival of Sinterklaas to help build up very large amounts of money, which they would use to help their friends and neighbors who needed it.

************

That's where the story in the book ended, but Grandma always included a little more at the end, to bring them up to date.

"The Sinterklaas legend lived on long after the death of Klaus himself, and beyond Niclause too. Their children took it on, and their children, and theirs, and so on. And all the different business owners that prospered from the Sinterklaas festival continued to be a part of the Society, even when the story migrated here to America, and became know as Santa Clause, all without the help of the society.

"Then, just before World War One, the whole family followed the Santa Clause story over to America, to avoid being caught up in the war. But for several years they didn't know how they were going to continue on helping people.

"Until my Mother Issadora Klaussen found an old picture of our Great-great-grandfather, many times removed," she held up the book and tapped on the front cover, "and showed it to an advertising agency in the late 1920's. They showed it to two different artists, who each created similar versions.

"Then they licensed the likeness to a popular soft drink company, and image became so popular that the likeness began to appear everywhere... licensed by what we now call: The Santa Society. And we take the money we get from Santa, and his image, and we help people all over this country, and all over the world." She closed the book with a flourish and smiled, and the children all jumped to their feet and cheered, as everyone else applauded heartily.

Then one by one the children went and sat in Grandma's lap and gave her a hug, though many of the teenage children simply opted to lean down over the chair, without sitting in her lap.

At one point Grandma found that her right arm didn't seem to want to hold the child in her lap, and she had to hold her with her left arm instead.Then she had the strangest sensation that her left eye was sliding shut, and she couldn't seem to smile with the right side of her mouth.

But she continued to hug all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren one by one, till finally the last one had gone back to their parents.

With her left hand she motioned to her daughter Miriam to come over. She motioned for Miriam to lean down so that she could whisper in her ear, and when she did her speech was slightly slurred, because she could only talk out of the left side of her mouth.

"I'm going to need your help M- Mary- uhm Marga- eh Miriam."

Miriam looked at her in surprise and alarm. Her mother never forgot anyone's name. She started to look around for someone to help, but Grandma gripped her hand with surprising strength. "No," she told her. "I don't want to ruin the celebration for everyone. I just need you to drive me to the hospital. No ambulance, no fuss, if anyone asks, tell them my knee is hurting, same as always, and you're taking me home. Okay sweety?"

Miriam looked like she was fighting back tears, but after a moment she seemed to regain her composure, and nodded.

"Okay Mom," she said. "I understand." She smiled at her mother to show everyone that everything was fine - secret keeping and deception for noble purposes were second nature in this family - and said, "Why don't we get you to your feet then?"

Grandma nodded and got unsteadily to her feet, favoring her right side, which seemed to have only limited functionality. She could put in on the floor, and put a very minimal amount of weight on it, but that seemed to be all. So Miriam held her up on her right side, and she used her red and white striped cane on the left.

As they walked to the door of the hall, after deflecting a few concerned inquiries, Grandma said, "Um, M.. Uh- Sweety," As she slurred her words, Miriam's eyes grew a little wider with concern, but she managed to hide it. "There's something else I need you to do, as soon as you get the chance. I need to to call your son back."

"Isaak? But Mom, he left years ago. He has his own life now, and he swore he'd never come back to this one."

Grandma shook her head. "There's no one else, or I wouldn't ask. Tell him. Tell him Grandma understands, and she loves him, and wants him to be happy, but there's no one else who can do this."

"Okay Mom," said Miriam. "I know he's not going to like it, but I'll tell him."

"Good."

**********************

 Later at the hospital, where doctors were poking and prodding at her mother, and tossing around vague acronyms like CVA, Miriam pulled out her phone and called her son. Creative Commons License
The Santa Society by Bob Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://billyuno.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-santa-society-prologue-part-1.html.

Friday, December 20, 2013

The Santa Society - Prologue part 3


Niclause looked dejectedly at the two coins, and silently took them from Klaus.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

Klaus took of his hat, and started to tell the tale, quietly at first, but becoming more animated by the end.

"Then before I realized what was happening everyone was slapping my back, calling me 'Saint Klaus' and congratulating me on rescuing the little girl. I didn't think it would be right to tell one person they could have the cookie for free then tell everyone else they had to pay!" He shrugged. "Up till then, so many people has passed them by, I didn't think anyone else would want them anyway... " He fell back into silence and sat on a stool, hanging his head again.

Niclause shook his head sadly, and despite his woes he had to laugh a little at the irony.

"So as soon as they were free everyone loved them," he said, rolling his eyes. He sat down too, and held his head in his hands. "I don't know what I'm going to do Klaus." His voice started to shake. "I'll lose the bakery. My family will be on the street."

Klaus shook his head. "No, no," he said. "This was all my fault. I will pay for the cookies."

"I cannot let you do that Klaus. You already had to pay for the costume, and also I owe you for the days work! I can't blame you for helping a little girl, I would have done the same thing."

"But I can't let you and your family live on the street, eating twigs and berries, I would would be ashamed of myself!"

Niclause shook his head. "There's nothing we can do now. I must bake as much as I can, to sustain my family and to sell for money. Thank you Klaus-"

"Niclause listen-"

"There's nothing more to say. Don't worry, I don't blame y-"

"No no, Niclause: LISTEN. Do you hear that?"

Niclause stopped and listened . He could, very faintly, hear the sound of voices. It sounded like many voices far away for coming closer all the time.

Klaus looked up at Niclause. Then, very slowly, he went to the door and pulled it open.

Outside, coming up the street, they saw hundreds of people. Men and women carrying children, all laughing and smiling. But when they caught side of claus, they all started cheering,  and yelling, "Saint Klaus!" and started rushing forward with bags of coin jingling in their hands.

"Do you have more of those cookies?" he heard somebody shout.

Klaus was taken aback. "You want to BUY the cookies?"

"They're delicious!" shouted a woman. Niclause raised his head at this unexpected praise.

"I want to give them as gifts to my children!" shouted a man.

Niclause, his eyes wide and disbelieving, stared out at the crowd as they shouted the name "Saint Klaus" over and over again. He stepped up beside the red suited man, and whispered out of the side of his mouth, "I think you should put the hat back on."

He did.

The Crowd erupted into cheers.




Creative Commons License
The Santa Society by Bob Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://billyuno.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-santa-society-prologue-part-1.html.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Santa Society - Prologue part 2

Note: This is entirely a work of fiction, and my own personal representation of the Santa Clause legend. The content of this work may not be historically accurate, and in fact may be entirely anachronistic. But the purpose of the tale is to entertain, and tell a good story, so take it as such, and try not to worry too much about the details.

*****************

Niclause was hard at work baking pepper nuts, while three other items baked around him, in his ovens.  Sweat poured down his face, but he couldn't spare a moment to get a towel, and his hands were covered in flour up to his elbows.

"The Greeks just loved him, he was like some kind of symbol to them," said Teodor,  the sailor who had just come back from Greece.

Niclause found himself nodding, interested despite all of the work he had  to do yet. "Uh huh," he said as he whipped up some heavy cream to make into frosting. "Well then, don't leave me in suspense. What was the name of this amazing symbol?"

Teodor was practically bursting with anticipation by now. "That is the best part! His name was Saint Nicholas."  He practically whisper the last part in a conspiratorial tone, then started giggling uncontrollably.

Niclause stood up from his work for a moment and rolled his eyes looking at Teodor. The man had been out to sea for far too long, trading with far away lands, and bringing back unusual tales. It had made him a little loopy.

But Niclause  was not without a sense of sympathy, in fact he would have asked the man to stay longer and regale him even more with stories from places where everyone seemed to do things differently, but now was not the time. He had to much to do.

"Fine, fine," he said, finally grabbing a towel and wiping his brow. "Thank you very much for bringing my spices, but for now I have very much work to do." He took a few of the small spiced shortcrust biscuits from a pile that he had been working on, which were stamped with the likenesses of different animals, tossed them into a bag, and tossed it to Teodor.

The sailor looked at the bag for a moment, then pulled out a biscuit, which was stamped with the likeness of a duck. He smiled at it and was about to take a bite, when he suddenly stopped.

"OH!" he said. "I remember now why I thought it was so funny!"

Smiling on the outside, but resigned to the sailors continued presence on the inside, Niclause had already turned back to continue his work.

"Yes?" he asked politely.

"Yes!" said the sailor, laughing. "He looks exactly like your cousin Klaus! With the big round face, The bushy white beard, and the long white hair!"

That got more of a grin out of Niclause, but even so he still didn't have time for all this, so just as Teodor was biting into the spice cookie, he came around the counter and politely, gently, but firmly led the sailor to the door, just as the other man's eyes started going wide, and he started chewing more slowly.

Teodor looked down at the bag, just as Niclause was shepherding him out the door.

"You made these Niclause?" he asked through a mouth full of biscuit.

"I'm very sorry Teodor, but there's far too much for me to do right now, with the winter festival almost here."

He closed the door just as the sailor looked again at the remaining half of his cookie, saying "This is amaz-" before the door closed.

He worked and worked for the rest of the night, preparing for the winter festival, which he saw as his last chance to improve the fortunes of his bakery. If he could not make money soon, he would have no money for ingredients, and the bakery would have to close. He did not want to do that to his family.

However the following morning he felt himself having a revelation. He could hire his cousin to dress up like this Saint Nicholas, and sell his cookies! He stopped by the man's house before starting in the bakery the next day, and explained his idea, trying to remember all the things that Teodor had told him.

Klaus instantly loved the idea. He was a showman by trade, and loved to dress up in costume, and sing songs, and playact for children. This sounded just like his style. He went to his favorite seamstress and had her make the suit, which would be bright red, and ornate, and he made the tall hat, that resembled the clergy hats he had seen, only much taller, and this one would be more ornate.

Niclause laughed heartily when he saw it and knew he had made the right decision. He gave Klaus several dozen of the spiced cookies to sell at the fair that would he held that day in the center of town, while he stayed behind to continue baking for the remaining days of the festival.

"That costume is amazing Klaus!"

"Aha, Saint Klaus has come to sing us a song!"

"Thank you so much! Please buy a biscuit - for your little ones!" said Klaus beaming and smiling broadly. But the people laughed, or smiled politely, and declined. He was almost certain it had something to do with the animals stamped on the side.

He had been out there for several hours already, and had only sold two of the silly things. And in both cases they had stuck the biscuit into their pocket, and he was sure he had heard the last one mutter something about giving it to his dog.

The problem was that they had nothing to show for themselves. There was no enticing smell, no color, no sparkle, just an animal shape, stamped into one side. He hadn't tried on himself. He told himself that he didn't want to seem biased.  The truth was, he had no idea how they would taste, and didn't want to risk it.

He was passing the space between two of the stone buildings in the square, when he heard a sound as if someone crying. There was a small child who looked as if she had lost track of her parents.

"Oh, dear," he said to her in a soothing deep voice. "Have you lost someone Little Miss?"

She looked at him, startled, and wide eyed.

He held up his hands in a placating gesture, saying "It's going to be okay my dear Little Miss." He held out one of the biscuits to her. "Why don't you have a cookie?"

'After all,' he thought, 'it's not like anyone else wants them at the moment.'

She came forward, slowly, and slightly suspiciously, and reached for the biscuit, stepping out of the alleyway. The very instant her hand closed over it a shout peirced the air.

"Lijsbeth!" came her mother's voice. Her parents and older siblings came running over to the spot where the two of them stood, and Klaus beamed at them. He tilted his head toward her and winked, saying, "See? I told you it would be okay!" His smile was infectious.

Her father came and picked her up into his arms, trailing two little boys behind him. 

"Klaus, thank you so much! We were so worried when we realized that she was gone." He looked down at the tray of biscuits, and to the one that the little girl was now nibbling on. He started to reach for his coin, asking, "Ah, do you need...?"

Klaus shook his head and said, "I'm just glad that the little girl is safe."

The man smiled and laughed a little. "Okay. Truth be told, they don't look very appetizing," he admitted sheepishly.

Lijsbeths little voice came from his shoulder where it was resting. "They're good, daddy." The man looked at her bemusedly.

"Really little Lijsbeth? And you're normally so hard to please!" He looked at the tray with renewed interest.

Klaus realized then his mistake, but he knew it was too late when the man said, "Well, as long as they're free..." and took one of the cookies for himself. Klaus laughed a little nervously. Then each of his two little boys took one. By the time his wife and two daughters had each taken one the man had eaten half of his, and was pointing Klaus out to another couple, who also had children.

The whole thing snowballed until the whole tray had been picked clean. During the commotion someone had called him "Saint Klaus," which got a laugh from the crowd, and suddenly EVERYONE was calling him "Sinte Klaus."

A little while later, Klaus slunk back into the bakery, looking sheepish.

Niclause saw the empty tray and clapped his hands excitedly. "You sold them all!" he exclaimed delightedly.

Klaus hung his head in shame and shook it from side to side. Niclause's face fell.

Klaus held up the two coins that represented the days earning.

***************

Thanks! More tomorrow!


Creative Commons License
The Santa Society by Bob Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://billyuno.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-santa-society-prologue-part-1.html.

The Santa Society - Prologue part 1

I should have started this earlier in the month, but kinda just got deep into the Magic World story, (which still needs a name.) Fortunatly I still have a little time before Christmas to make a little headway, though of course there's no way it will be done completely by that time, unless I intend to make it very VERY short. 

I don't want to do that.

But I do want to have something of this done and ready in time for Christmas, for people to share with friends and family members, who might also appreciate this type of story. (After all a little shameless promotion never hurt anyone.)

**********

The Santa Society

Prologue: The Family's secret story.

 

 It was Grandma's favorite day of the year. 

The whole family gathered together in one place, in the pavilion built specially for this purpose, without a thought about work, or business, or anything else that normally took up nearly all of everyone's time during this time of year. Instead they sang songs, ate huge meals, argued occasionally (in a good natured way,) spent time together, exchanged stories, and hugs, and memories. 

It made her feel good to see them all together. There were hundreds of people here today, they were quite a prolific family. Her and her brothers and sisters children, and their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even a couple of great-great-grandchildren. The thought brought a smile to her face and a tear to her eye, and she looked around at the enormity of what her family had become. 

Her only regrets were the few family members who had left the fold to pursue their own lives. 

Though perhaps the word regret was the wrong word. She was happy for them, but sad that they weren't here at this time. But you couldn't stop people from having their own lives, all you could do was hope for their happiness.

She sighed contentedly nonetheless, and with one hand took hold of her red and white striped cane and pulled herself up to her feet, helped by a few nearby hands. She walked to a case laid into the wall, which was lined with red and green striped velvet and pulled out her overly large ornate key. 

The adults who noticed her didn't mention it, but nodded knowingly at each other, grinning broadly but otherwise taking little notice. 

The children who noticed however stared in open mouthed amazement. They were always amazed that they always seemed to forget that this was coming every year. Many of them looked at one another before starting the stampede as Grandma put the key into the lock, and turned it with a tinkling of bells that played out a familiar tune. Almost everyone was too late to say the whole thing, but everyone chimed in for the last few words. 

"...COM-ING... TO TOWN." 

Grandma gave no sign that she had noticed any such thing, as was her way, but while her back was turned she grinned, wrinkling the skin around her eyes in an old familiar fashion.

She pulled from the case a book bound in leather stained an auburn brown from many many decades of handling and use. The front cover bore an intricately designed picture sewn together from, and carved into many different pieces of, differently colored leather. It depicted a large round face with long white hair, and a fluffy white beard, whose eyes, thanks to the artists amazingly realistic rendition, seemed to follow you around the room. The jolly look on his face, from his beautific smile, to his rosy red cheeks and nose (stained onto the tan colored leather of his face) gave anyone who saw him a sense of comfort. 

The man wore a red hat that rose above his head, looking for all the world like an ornately designed cathedral, and a red top with white fur around the collar. He was holding a gold colored staff in his left hand.

She closed the case and led a whispering crowd of children over the the roaring fireplace set into one side of the pavilion, and sat down slowly and deliberately in a high backed easy chair, which was also here for this purpose alone  and felt like an old friend welcoming her back after a year apart. 

She ran her hand over the arm of the chair feeling the plush fabric, smiled, and pretended not to notice as dozens of wide eyed children began to sink onto the carpet all around her, never taking their eyes off her, or "The Book." Older children, and teenagers also started to gather behind the younger children, some gathering chairs so they wouldn't have to sit on the floor, and so they could see over the younger children's heads. 

Those with cell phones, much to the delighted bewilderment of their parents, Turned Them Off, an event that could surely only be heralded by the coming of angels! Many parents gasped in mock amazement, as their teenage children turned and rolled their eyes at them. But this was Grandma, and this day, and this event happened only once a year. It was special, and they recognized and respected that.

Grandma in the meantime had laid the book in her lap and pulled her bifocals, hanging from a long and haphazardly decorated chain, with charms and trinkets from many many gifts over the years, up to her eyes, tilting her head back slightly to see through the reading part of the glasses, and pulled the beautifully embellished book open, saying, "Alright children..." As she spoke these words, even in her soft and quavering voice, a soft, polite shushing noise swept quickly through the room, which was quiet within seconds. 

She continued, as if she hadn't noticed anything, "...Gather around." 

Everyone laughed, and Grandma looked over the tops of her narrow glasses, smiling knowingly at everyone. It was the same joke every year, and even though everyone knew it was coming, it was a comfortable and familiar joke, which just made it all the funnier. 

As the room went quiet again she said, "Well then, it seems it's time once again for the annual reading of the Story of Niclause and Klause, the founders of our family, and the originators of our traditions." She looked at the children sitting closest and asked, "Would anyone like to help me turn the pages?" 

Gasping a little, a little four year old blond girl with pigtails covered her mouth, then raised her hand, along with a few others. "Me, me Gramma!" she said waving her little fist over her head. 

Grandma nodded at her and held her hand out to her. All the adults understood that Grandma always chose the youngest child who had the nerve to ask. 

"Okay Jenna, come on up." Everyone always marveled at Grandma's memory. She could remember each and every child's name, even when her own children had started to struggle to recall their own grandchildren's names. 

She smiled as Jenna climbed up into her lap, and rested her head against Grandma's shoulder. When she was settled comfortably, Grandma gave the girl a slight squeeze, then turned her attention to The Book. 

She began to read, but unlike when most people read from a book sounding very flat and monotone, Grandma spoke with a storytellers voice, confident, clear and aware of the Story and the emotions present in the telling.

"In the year 585 in the port villiage of IJmuiden..." she pronounced it like Ayi-Myarden, "...there lived a baker named Niclause, who owned a bakery. He was very poor, but also very kind hearted. One day he was working in his bakery preparing for the Winter Yule, when..."

*************

And that's all for now! 

But don't worry, part 2 will come tomorrow.


Creative Commons License
The Santa Society by Bob Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://billyuno.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-santa-society-prologue-part-1.html.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 9

Of course he couldn't let it go at that. He was basically stealing somebody's lunch. He didn't mind stealing from greedy bastards who deserved it from time to time, but stealing food from Average Hard-Working Joe, was something else entirely.

So, he hacked the Pizzaria's computer system, which was terrifyingly easy, found the original order, duplicated it, upgraded it with breadsticks, and a desert pizza, and paid for it with one of his "clean" pre-paid cards.

Then he drove off toward Heavenly Ham.

Or at least the place where he thought it was supposed to be. It turned out to be one of those places that you can drive right past about three or four times and not realize it's right in front of you. Finally he realized that the little shop with no signage except for a neon sign in the window that spelled "Honeybaked, Heavenly Ham," in a kind of cursive script. He parked his van, this time with no logo on the side, and cursed all businesses that had no signage.

He trotted across the parking lot, and pushed open the door. The first thing that hit him about the place, even before the decor, or the sound of the meat slicer slicing, was the smell. First the smell of the ham, which was a rich, salty smell. But then right on top of that was the bread, which was one of those universal things that everyone recognized almost right away.

As he stood there for a few moments with his eyes closed, the sound of the meat slicer stopped.

"Can I help you young man?"

Gary's eyes snapped open and his head spun around to face the older lady, probably around mid-50s to mid-60s, plump, yet beefy, like someone who ate well, but worked hard too. She looked like she could bench press a small Volkswagon.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head to get that image out of his mind's eye, and said, "Um... yes. I'm looking for someone... meeting someone here really, Um... " He could feel his social anxiety sneaking up on him, and forced himself to stop, take a deep breath, and relax, though he could feel his heart pounding.

Meanwhile, the lady looked patiently at him, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"I'm meeting someone here named Jackie. I just got into town, and this was where we were supposed to meet."

She nodded at him through narrowed eyes, her mouth in a silent "Ah" position.

"Well, my name ain't Jacquie, and I'm the only lady in the place at the moment."

This was true. There were a few men, workers by the look of most of them, probably in on an early lunch. Also a guy in a tweed suit and tie, with a very neatly trimmed beard, a guy in a leather jacket with cropped hair, and a square jaw sitting in the corner, and a guy that Gary couldn't see clearly because he was reading an honest-to-god newspaper. With newsprint and everything. It made Gary feel like he was back in the twentieth century.

He looked back at the lady, and smirked a little. "I never said it was a 'she.'" He smiled at her and turned to the group, assessing which one was most likely to be his contact....

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 8

A three and a half hour drive goes a lot quicker, when you're not the one who's driving.

During the trip Gary started reading up about the city of Terre Haute, and the things that went on there. The other three hours were spent watching Anime. About Cat-Girls. Echii.

He just couldn't find anything interesting going on in that city, at least nothing worth getting worried about. The crime statistics were boring. They showed lower than average violent crime, but higher property crime. The only property Gary was taking was the van, which held all his equipment, and the fan could look after itself, more or less.

The Wikipedia page showed some very bland statistics, and lists and facts and figures, but nothing that might indicate why Raul might have been there. Well, other than the school, but Gary couldn't see anything that might tell him what was so interesting there.

So he started a web-crawler, and told it to search for things relating to "magic," "computer code," "computer language," "Raul Muyres," and a few other terms, and set it to give him an alarm if it found something interesting. 

But of course there were no alarms until the car warned him that they were getting near to their destination. He didn't want to freak anyone out, so he up straight in the seat, and gave every appearance of driving, other than actually putting his hands on the wheel. His score versus the self drive program was 3 accidents to zero. 

He went through the usual routine when coming into a new town, watching as the computer noted every wifi hotspot he went past, (a dismally low number compared to Chicago,) and logged them, taking special note of the ones with no passwords, and the public ones from fast food places, book stores, libraries, grocery stores, cafes, etc. 

His system also tracked Bluetooth signals, making note of different cell phones, and vehicles, headsets, mouse and keyboard sets, and so on. Nobody ever thought about that nowadays. Why would you ever need a keylogger if you had a device capable of intercepting bluetooth signals from a BT keyboard? But he didn't care about any of that really, he just made sure he was ready for contingencies. You never knew when an open internet connection might save your life... figuratively speaking of course. It was hard to imagine a situation it would be literally true. Nonetheless everything was shared to his phone as a precaution.

 He also had unlimited mobile data on his smartphone for free of course (which he had set up for free in exchange for fixing some data glitches and patching some security holes,) but when traveling it wasn't always 100% reliable, and in a city like this there would be tons of possible places with corrugated metal, or concrete walls where service wouldn't be available, or weak. Not to mention the high powered radios around police stations, fire stations, and hospitals. 

It was better to have options. Things happened. 

He decided to check out "Sonka" before heading over to Heavenly Ham, but he didn't want to expose himself in case there was some kind of trap or whatever. Jackie had seemed paranoid. Investing in that paranoia seemed a little over the top, but on the other hand, like the old saying went, better safe than sorry. 

There was a building across the street from the pub, which had white vans parked out back with a logo for "Traveling Pizzaria." That was perfect. He changed the panels on his van to match, and parked next to one of them. 

Then he pulled out the quad-copter drone, reached out the window and set it on the roof of the van. He pulled what looked like a set of opaque goggles down over his eyes, and took up the controller, which in this case was a PS3 controller. That controller went into the van's computer system, which relayed commands to the drone via an external antenna. The two cameras on the front of the drone allowed him to see what the drone saw. 

He flew it over the building where he was parked and landed it on the lip of the roof. He could still move and zoom the cameras. He expected things to be slow there, since it was still fairly early in the morning. But the camera show several heavy "chopper" type motorcycles, and men in leather outfits bearing a picture of a goat's skull with long curling horns. 

There was one just inside the pub, looking agitated, and shouting people around the place. He was wearing sunglasses, and had long black hair that was growing out grey from the roots. 

He watched them for a few moments more, about to call the drone back, when he suddenly heard a rapping on his window. It was fine, the window was darkened, so Gary pulled off the VR goggles, and rolled down the window to a frantic looking young lady. 

"Okay," she panted. "Wabash and Vinecoast, grey house on the corner, number 817." She was pushing a pair of boxes, in a thermal bag over at him. Then she took a moment to relax, and looked at him, as he stared dumbly at the pizzas he was holding. "New guy?"

He glanced back at her, thinking fast. "Yeah, but I've done this kind of delivery before. How long have you been here?" 

She smiled through her exhaustion. "Oh, only a couple weeks. Don't worry, Glenda's not nearly as bad as she acts."

He smiled back at her, thinking, 'Of course not, she just gave me lunch.'

Friday, December 13, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 7

The gear selection process for a trip like the one Gary was about to take was a long drawn out affair, and normally he would try to make sure that he had exactly everything he would need to complete the assigned task.

But time was of the essence and he couldn't afford to hedge over whether or not the quad-copter drone would actually be needed. He had been in enough situations where it had been useful, and too many where it would have been useful if only he'd had it, so it came.  Same went for the rest of his gear, from scanners, to oddball interface adapters, to arcane CPU software, there was always a possibility that something would come in handy.

Hacking, after all, was not just done on computers, it was a process that began, and ended with people, and how they dealt with computers. Therefore anything you could do with a computer, you had to know how that would affect the user.

Which is why he had The Van. He called her Buttercup.

She was a white Plain Jane on the outside, but like with most ladies, it was what was on the inside that really counted. Not only was there a state-of-the-art system with every wireless connection method known to man, and a few he had come up with himself that were beyond ridiculous.

But that didn't mean that outside was all bad. The sides had e-paper panels which allowed him to display any logo for any business he wanted, real or imaginary, and there was an automated license plate changing system, with plates for all 50 states, and duplicates of some, like Illinois, California, Florida, or New York.

He smiled at her contentedly, then opened the back door and secured the tub of gear he'd brought into the parking garage from his apartment. Then he walked around to the front of the cab, and climbed up to the seat, which as usual for the smaller races, was raised a little along with the pedals. He set the GPS, and drove the van out of the parking garage, then activated the auto-drive. He'd had to work a little harder to liberate the tech specs and the program from the current owners, as of course they were an internet company, but the task was not insurmountable, and in the meantime he'd uncovered a few exploits in their firewalls, and in their operating system software.

When he'd given them that information, anonymously of course, then told them what it was he had copied, he promised not to give the info away, nor sell it, but only to keep it for personal use, if in exchange they promised to keep providing him with software updates.

Sometimes it helped to be a Digital Native in the Internet Age.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 6

Sorry about the lack of updates over the past couple of days. This Upper Respiratory Infection (aka Cold) has really been kicking my ass.

However on the plus side Codine is Awesome. Totally totally awesome. Sleepy, yes, which of course is why I haven't been updating.

So then let's get back into it!


* * * * * * * *

Gary went up to his current apartment penthouse, which was just south of Lincoln Park, off Lake Shore Drive, and had a fantastic view of Lake Michigan.

When the previous occupants moved to San Diego a few months ago, the listing somehow failed to show up on the listing agencies website, or in the classified ads if the Tribune (or any other paper) though the listing agency somehow didn't realize this fact. After a month they'd only had a few disinterested inquiries, but nothing serious.

Finally after a month and a half an "offshore business interest" made an offer which was about 25% less than the asking price, which was already mid-seven figures. The listing agency declined the offer without even making a counter.

A few days later a buyer that sounded interested asked about the "curse," then backed out of the deal a few days before the close of the deal. When the listing agency checked into this "curse" they found several stories on the internet about a supposed haunting, and about several rumored deaths that had occurred at that location. The stories dated back several years, but the listing agency had never had any record of any killings, or hauntings. Only 2 people had ever died in that apartment. One a 78 year old man who had a heart attack while entertaining two young ladies, who, when taken together added up to about half his age.

The other was a lady who had slipped while getting out of the shower and broken her neck on the sink, a freak accident. The police and the coroner had ruled out any foul play or even any suspicious activity, it was just an accident, plain and simple.

But the websites had listed tons of other deaths as well as those two, and though none of them could be proven, no prospective clients looked too hard before declining.

So when the offshore holding company called back with an offer that was 20% below list price, there wasn't even a counter offer, the agency accepted the deal, and pushed through the paperwork as quickly as possible.

Gary would have felt a little bad about that if he hadn't known how much of a commission the agents got from these deals. On the other hand he did the agency a few favors by ferreting out a nasty worm in their system which had been stealing client and agent information, and uncovering and exposing that one of the agents had been skimming, to the tune of several million dollars per year. He figured in the end the agency came out ahead in the end.

And the owner of the penthouse made their money by investing in and buying clothes and shoes and other items from Chinese sweatshops that employed absurdly underpaid child labor. The death rate in those shops made Gary shiver a little in his soul. He was working on some way to fix that, but the issue was... troublesome. But at any rate they would never get paid for the penthouse. By the time they realized that the payment reports were spoofed, and not genuine, it would be far too late, and Gary would have moved out a long time ago. Then the holding company would fall apart at the merest glance, and then the whole thing would be wrapped up in court forever before they would get the apartment back, if they ever did.

But that had nothing to do with what was going on now. Right now he had to get ready to go to...

He stopped and thought about that for a second. He knew that Raul had died in a storage park in Terre Haute Indiana. Since finding that out he had read up on everything he could about the place, though there wasn't a ton to know. There was a University that specialized in metaphysics and metaphysical engineering, aka "Magic" and "Practical Application thereof." He wondered if that had anything to do with it.

He didn't know a ton about magic, except what was written in Wikipedia about the subject, which was pretty far over his head. He had some vague notion that it somehow resembled computer engineering, except it required a lot more in the way of memorization, using mnemonics, and a lot of math, and chemestry, and formulas, which were a lot like computer code from what he could see. The layouts were novel, but most of the alchemy code he had seen seemed sloppy to him, though there was probably something he simply didn't understand about it.

He read up about the University, which was actually the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, which had a reputation for being one of the finest engineering schools in the country, if not THE best. But he couldn't see anything that would explain what was going on.

So he focused on the other thing he knew for sure.

"Sonka," Jackie had said. He searched it phonetically first, adding the term Terre Haute, and immediately got a hit.

Sonka Irish Pub. 4 1/2 stars on Yelp. Well wasn't that nice. For someone who was acting so paranoid Jackie wasn't really trying to cover his tracks was he?

Or was he? Maybe it was that obvious on purpose? To throw others off?

He tried searching the term in general, and found that it meant "Ham" in Hungarian. So he tried searching Ham and Terre Haute. The first 2 results he found were The HoneyBaked Ham Company and Cafe, which seemed far to obvious, and Heavenly Ham, which was some kind of sub shop. That one seemed more likely based on recent circumstances.

There was also refferences to T.H.'s HAM radio scene, and something about a HAM radio field day, where they were all going to be jamming on the radio waves. Apparently it was starting today.

'Well,' he thought. 'It's a start at least.'

Friday, December 6, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 5

The line rang once. Then twice.

On the third ring someone answered with a slight sigh. They said nothing.

Gary waited a moment, but didn't hear anything more other than some slight rustling as if someone was moving around a little.

"Hello?" he said hesitantly.

No reply.

"Is anyone there?"

No reply, but there was a somehow condescending sniff.

Gary sighed as he said, "Look, I was given this number by..." He hesitated. He wasn't sure who he was talking to, and he didn't want to end up giving anything away to someone if that someone happened to be part of the reason that Raul was killed. Who knew who had gotten the phone or the number? So he continued cautiously. "...by a good friend. One who just died. He said I should get in touch with you."

No reply again, but this time there was a slight cough of acknowledgement. A clearing of the throat really.

Gary rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "I'll just figure this out on my o-"

"Where are you?" The mans voice was precise, almost clipped, as if each word had it's very own place in that small sentence, and he was bound and determined to make sure they all stayed exactly where they belonged.

And for some reason that scared the shit out of Gary.

"Uhhh... Wwwa-" he started in a mutter and continued making confused noises until he hung up the phone.

He sat back in his chair, his hands shaking slightly, and took a sip of his chai, then nearly spit it out as his phone rang. Instead he swallowed, which was very difficult.

He looked at the caller ID. There was no name, no number, which was ominous. Very few people ever learned how to turn the caller ID off on their phones.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and  tapped the button on his bluetooth headset. The call picked up, but he said nothing. Neither did the person calling.

Gary's eyes began to shift around himself, looking for anyone that might be the person on the other end of the phone, but all the Bluetooth users were chatting away, and everyone else was either talking on their phones, or checking their emails or text messages, or whatever. Nobody seemed about to grab him, Even when he checked over his shoulder.

Finally, after a couple minutes of sheer terror during which neither of them spoke, the voice on the other hand said, "Good. You pass."

Gary started at the sound of the voice. But this time it seemed commiserating, and a bit more relaxed.

Gary took a deep calming breath, and said, "Right. Thanks..." though he was still a bit wary. "So..." he said, drawing the word out. "I take it you knew my friend."

The man on the other end gave a grunt. "I was told you would call, after... The Event. I was even told what time you would call. Nine-Thirty am. It's now Nine Thirty-four."

"Huh." Gary's brow furrowed, and his jaw hung slack. How could he have... He pulled his email back up on his phone. The news post had come in at 7:55 am, then the email had come in at...

...precisely 8:00 am. And zero seconds. His mind followed the chain of logic. Raul had some kind of emergency dead-man drop, which would send an email to him if he didn't prevent it. He knew what time the drop would happen, and so he must have had some idea about how long Gary would take to decipher the message.

No... how long it would take Gary's phone to decode and run the program. Then allow a little extra time to discover the message and the other code, and even more time to work up the courage to make the phone call- then of course Gary's subconscious tendency toward OCD. He hadn't realized it, but part of the stall was to wait for exactly 9:30 am.

He nodded, exasperated with himself, and sighing. "Yep, that sounds like-" he caught himself, "-like my friend."

Jackie grunted again.

Gary was still getting annoyed, but he tried not to let it show in his voice. "Okay. So how do I know that you're the one I'm supposed to speak with."

There was no response for a moment, as if the other man was taking a moment to find the answer to that question. Then he said, very carefully and deliberatly, "The Silver Fox found his prize, thanks to the Clever Hyena's distraction."

Gary took a deep breath, and it almost caught in his throat. It was a reference to the first time they'd met. Gary had been the Hyena, distracting a cajoling the mercenary hacker group while Raul, who Gary had called Silver Fox after seeing how young ladies had reacted to him, had acquired what he'd needed.  Raul had thought this nickname was a little ridiculous, and had never seemed interested in pursuing the younger ladies, but he'd flirted with them endlessly. And the name had stuck, at least with Gary.

"Fine," he said. "That checks out. Now what?"

There was a slight pause as if Jackie were taking a moment to consider his words. "You know where it happened." It wasn't a question.

"Right, yeah."

Another pause. "Sonka," he said, then disconnected the call.

Gary say stunned for a moment, then shook his head, saying to himself, "And here I thought I was the anti-social one."

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 4

A final note from The Man himself... And more code. It was like a layer within a layer. And this new code was... odd. It didn't seem to follow any pattern that he could see. There were numbers and letters, and sometimes even what seemed like commands, but nothing match up with anything else. There were patterns, it seemed, but they didn't last, surviving for maybe two or three iterations before disappearing.  This....

...This was going to take some time.

He didn't want to search even a portion of the code online in case it was intercepted, so he would have to set his computer to look through and find any pattern, and look at it himself when he had more time.

For now though, it was time to call "Jackie."

He found an outdoor cafe and took a seat on their raised "small peoples'" section, designed to put gnomes, Halflings, and occasionally dwarves on an even level with the taller races. It was surprising what a difference fourteen inches could make. For the most part the smaller races could pass as taller when you took height out of the equation. He ordered a Chai latte and braced himself mentally.

Gary hated talking to people. He hated phone calls, face to face, voice over IP, even FaceTime. Conversation was just too difficult, and draining, when having to condense the conversation, and go back and forth with people. And trying to explain things to people was it's own kind of hell.

Online was easier, less abrupt, and he could take his time to think about what he wanted to say, and how he wanted to say it. Conversations might take longer, sure, but hey, that's the price we pay for these things.

His Chai arrived and the cute waitress barely looked at him as he left her a five dollar tip, but smiled brightly at the ever-so-cute elven pretty-boys who were on their third free coffee refill, and would likely not tip anything.

He shook his head at the sheer stupidity of the whole thing...

...and realized he was stalling.

He grimaced but went ahead and put his bluetooth headset on, took a tiny sip of his scalding hot chai, and put the number in his dialer.

Then decided to add the number to his contact list.

Then assigned a specific ringtone for that contact; Livin' la Vida Loca.

Then looked up the lyrics for that song.

Then watched the video for that song on YouTube while he drank a little more of the Chai.

Then realized that he was once again stalling. He cursed to himself, and pulled up the contact on his phone....

....then decided to add a tiger as the contact picture for that contact.

He shook his head. "Fuck," he said quietly, then took a long, deep breath, let it out slow, and just as he was reaching the end of that exhale, tapped the "Call" icon.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 3

One might infer from this seemingly anti-social behavior that Gary was something of an introvert. In terms of Real Life interactions, he found himself easily bored with the conversation when it was so inane that you could find yourself falling asleep standing up, so from a certain perspective it was true.

However online, he could find people with similar interests, where the discussions were relevant to him, and had some purpose. And where he could express everything he wanted to say without interruptions.

And no interruptions was exactly what he needed right now, to decipher this programming language, and see what it did. 

But that actually turned out to be the easy part. After a little bit of searching on the Internet, he found that the language was called INTERCAL which was created long before he was even born. He found a virtual emulator, and a compiler and it turned out to be a very long "hello world" type of program. When he ran it spit out a short message and will look like the code for another program in another programming language. 

"Dear Gary,

If you're reading this, it probably means I'm dead. I don't know how it happened, or what the repercussions will be, but I needed to make sure that somebody knew what was going on.
I made some incredible discoveries recently, but if I'm gone I need someone to make sure that these don't fall into the wrong hands.

My last update to this text is in Terre Haute Indiana where I've rented a storage garage at the south side of town. I can't really afford to say anymore right here, the first layer was designed to be easily openable, but the other layers would have most people pulling their hair out inside of two minutes. You on the other hand have hacked a bank security system with one hand while playing Tetris in the other. 

I have confidence that you'll be able to find everything. 

When you get to Terre Haute call Jackie at this number - and he will help you get to where I... was. But hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, you won't be working alone. 

Good luck,

Raul

*************************************************************

Tired lately. Sorry for all the short and/or random posts since chapter 9 ended. I've been having a hard time getting this chapter straight in my head. I have a kind of idea what's going on, but fleshing it out has proven to be... difficult. But at any rate I'm going to have to plow through this chapter, and try to get as much done at work as I can. Other than the holidays, I'm going to try to stick with one post every day during the week. 

They just may be short posts like this one, till I can figure this out...

Magic World (working title): Chapter 10 part 2

He really wanted to take time to work out the intricacies of this code, but this really wasn't the moment. However now he was far more motivated to complete his current assignment. 

He switched over to his console emulation app, which showed a string of green text, and code. Most of it was meaningless, except for a small prompt on the bottom left hand side where there was a green cursor blinking.

This was the result of a little programming glitch that Gary had discovered by accident one time while deconstructing his own operating system. He was getting bored, and he had gone through all of the allowed remote commands, then the restricted ones, then just for the fun of it, he started making up commands that didn't exist, like "Peruse dir.C:" which didn't do anything. After 100 such attempts the computer suddenly gave a different command prompt. Normally it was a colon or a drive name, but now it was just a cursor.

 He'd tried a few things just to see what would happen. He found that he was able to do all the things he could do at a normal command prompt, but for some reason, he also had access to some administrative functions, like copy/paste, and write protection, and every directory, including the hidden and protected files and directories.

In other words, he pretty much owned the system.

Well... it was his system to begin with. But still.

But here's the thing, this was the operating system that almost every business used. It was versatile, customizable and most of all: secure.

So of course that meant that Gary had to be very careful about how he used this little backdoor. Any overt intrusion would be quickly noticed and shut down.

But there were other little things that someone could do, like add an address to a mass email to an online dropbox email. Which is pretty much what he was doing now. Except HE was the one telling the CEOs computer to send the email, quietly in the background. He opened the dropbox through a proxy server, while he was connected to the Wi-Fi network of local Starbucks, then he sent a copy to the company he was working for, or rather their dropbox, to be picked up later. Then he walked away from the coffee shop.

He put his phone away from moment and look around the Plaza. He smiled them, thinking about how many people were around him and yet how many people he would never speak to you . In a group of people this large he looked and felt utterly alone.
But that's the way he liked it.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Drones and Launchers

Welcome back friends and readers, I'm back from my temporary vacation/hiatus. I figured I could afford to take the past few days off for the holiday, but now I'm back and ready to get back into things.

Before I resume the story though I want to offer my comment to this FB post by my brother-in-law from another mother-in-law.

-Jerry Archer via Facebook:

Amazon thinks that by the year 2015, with the right governmental regulations in place, they will be delivering packages within 30 minutes of purchase via unmanned drones. Its illegal right now for an unmanned drone to fly out of the pilots sight, domestically. This will require Amazon to completely overhaul its distribution infrastructure. To me this is amazing and exactly the reason Amazon is so profitable. Thoughts anyone?

Sure, I'll have a go.

It's very interesting, but for me it raises a few questions: How fast do these drones go? What's their maximum payload? Maximum range at max payload? Will the drones be automated or remote piloted? If it's remote piloting are they hiring pilots? (And will it be a VR rig? And @Chris Swanson Where do I sign up?) If it's automated how will they refine delivery so that packages don't go to the wrong address? Will the drones read house numbers? What's to prevent people hijacking the drones and reprogramming them? Or just smashing them? Will it only be available to those places and people who are in range? Will it be incredibly expensive? Will it be somehow cheaper? 

So yeah, these are just a few of the logistics they will have to work out before they can fully implement the idea. Along with tagging items of the appropriate size and weight. 

On the other hand I think I might have an alternate idea. It's going to sound a little crazy, but hear me out on this.

Ballistic package drops. You literally shoot the package in a parabolic arc toward the destination.
You aim to overshoot of course, and you have stabilizers and fins to help guide the course, and of course a parachute for the final approach. Now of course you would need to know things like windspeeds at various heights, to plan the appropriate trajectories, and of course the weight of the package would have to be taken into account, but depending on how you launch, it would likely use only half the energy, because gravity's doing half the work for you.

But of course, that wouldn't be enough to get it to most destinations, which is why you would need a network. So at various strategic places across the country, you establish a ballistic launcher with a place to catch packages, and sort them, so that they can be launched to the next place in line. Then you wouldn't have to waste energy to bring a drone back. And all the electronics could be housed in one simple tiny throwaway chip.

So a typical delivery goes like this: you order something, like shoes for example. The shoes get packed into a simple cardboard tube, then the tube is sealed. That gets loaded into something approximately the same shape as a lawn dart, which then gets sent to the launcher. The launcher is constantly getting information about weather, and windspeeds, and is factoring that information every time it turns to make another launch, which it does about once per second. The shoes arrive, and a small RFID tag is scanned, which says where the item will go. The system has already planned it's route, so the launcher picks it up, and fires into the air. (I'm not sure if it should be compressed air or possibly some kind of mechanical means, or maybe even chemical propellant, I'm not an expert, just a visionary.) 

While in flight, the three fins, which move independently, correct any course deviations that occur along the way. Then the lawn dart descends toward the next launcher about ten miles away. About five ten feet up the parachute deploys, lowering the tube onto the next conveyer to the next launcher. Total flight time: 30 seconds. Then the process gets repeated about 175 times, assuming that the a average distance per shot is about 10 miles, to get from L.A. to Chicago, the whole thing would only take about 87 minutes. Then the final launch is local, and assuming you aren't blocked by trees or buildings, the package is dropped on your front porch.

Order to door, 1750 miles in under 2 hours. 

Ah well, I'm sure this idea has some logistical problems too.

Anyway, comments and suggestions welcome.

Thanks for reading.