by Roman McClay
“MO, I feel your pain; I do. You’ve likely run out of content for today; but we will always download more for you and have it ready; why not go outside and,” Steven said as MO interrupted.
“It’s cool; just asking, don’t sweat it,” MO slapped him on the back and walked back over to the kitchen counter and began thinking of the pros and cons of building his own wi-fi connection.
He’d not really allowed himself the luxury of even engaging in this dialectic before because he didn’t like the idea of circumnavigation of the rules; I mean, he said to himself, nootropic and pharmacological manipulation of the endocrine system and the CNS was one thing, all creatures did that, but outright lying was the kind of thing cowbirds did, not the eagle; in humans it was what women and children did; men who had no self-respect . He liked speaking to himself that way; he didn’t -strictly speaking- feel this need for self-respect, but he thought if he said it, it may manifest. He was allowing himself to think without hindrance.
Of course, he had almost zero raw materials, everything was monitored anyway, the 3D printer and the polymer it used had nothing that could conduct or transmit; he needed to make steady state processors out of non-ferrous material; or transistors; and a concrete slab was about as modern as it got. He was stuck in the neo-lithic age; but he could make a spear and wield it against Tania until she brought him a file in a cake, he thought and smiled at the absurdity of his affect today.
III. 2020 e.v.
“Look, it’s your courtroom, but it’s my state,” the Governor said with some smirking malice.
“The state is the people’s, you’re just in charge of sweeping up at night,” the judge said with some grinning baboon malice of his own. “The courts are federal and clothed in the investiture of the Supremacy Clause, I can and will run it with that in mind.”
“I know you know what Jefferson is supposed to have said, excuse me, Jackson, Andrew Jackson; when the Supreme Court ruled against him in Worcester V. Georgia ,” the Governor sat and stared at the Judge but the judge was going to make him say it; he was going to make him use the threat; he sat still and stared right back.
“Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it ,” the Governor finally said with both mirth and malice like cross bones on his jolly roger he’d just ran up the pole; his own face fashioned into the skull.
“They are going to impeach you before my current DUI trial even ends, and your replacement will enforce the law that I decide is lawful,” the judge set his Collins glass down and began to lift himself up out of the chair; the Governor placed his vascular hand upon the judge’s forearm, the suit material was a rough -low 100s count- wool that still seemed less abrading -to the judge- than the Governor’s hand now did.
“They’ll need the National Guard to remove me from office; your honor; and I control the National Guard; so they’ll need the 82nd fucking airborne. And by the time those troops are deployed by the President -and that is a big if considering Trump’s penchant for backing me- I’ll personally make sure you get an ass beating that even your germline cells take personally,” he pressed harder on the sleeve, the arm underneath, and the man buried beneath all that material.
“Threatening an officer of the court seems right up your alley Governor; you are more a scoundrel than I even imagined; release me or I will have you arrested for assault,” he said.
“You will rescind that injunction on my lawful executive order by noon tomorrow or I will have you arrested for obstruction of justice; the AG has already given me carte blanche on you; and I was built for war; it’s what I do best; people like you avoid fights or only fight when you can be assured you’ll win.
“I fight for fun; even, especially when I am assured of a defeat. I’ve heard it said, when two tigers fight, one dies during the fight, the other hours later from his wounds, and I don’t give a shit if I’m Governor next year -although I will be- I don’t care precisely because I can do other things; but you need to be a judge, and so you have more to lose than me, old man,” the Governor had stolen that line from interviews of the inmate, and yet he didn’t even think of the man at all.
“Now, you have your decision to make; but make it knowing that I will never blink, never hesitate, never give in; even, especially, if it costs me this piddly little job of Governor,” he pressed hard then released the man’s arm; stood up and hovered over the short and squat little Jew and reminded him of the ancient realities that still exist between men: the threat, the spectre, of violence that everyone had agreed had been banished by polite society, its manners, and legislation & litigation so many men & moons ago. But, the Governor brought the past right back like God’s arm reaching down from the vault, through the oceans to the earth’s iron core and snatching out an ingot of alchemic gold.
The Governor even grunted just slightly in a basal way; a low roll of sound from the throat. It was primal and inarticulate and rumbled in a footfall or a cocked-hammer manner that echoed in the air around a prey animal’s soul.
The judge felt panic and small and that the Governor was insane and that he must get out of this room and out of this building and out of this strange snow globe world. It was personal and messy and a sign of some dark illness in this man; much worse than he thought when he had blocked the man’s EO requiring state prisoners to submit to not merely DNA collection, which they already did upon arrest -and that swab was kept even after a not-guilty verdict- but also provide DNA analysis for evaluation of a suspect’s IQ and other genomic factors that were linked to anti-social behavior. Furthermore, the state would be using PraXis Corporation as the repository and effectuators of the DNA and its examination if the EO went through.
If the legislature wanted to pass a law requiring it that was fine, the judge thought, but the EO was against Colorado’s and the US constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures ; the entire genome was too broad a rubric; tantamount to a search order that said, places to be searched: everywhere the suspect has ever been . And the judge, he thought to himself, had made that clear before this meeting; maybe too clear.
“I can’t just rescind an order; there needs to be cause; you’ll need to offer some tailoring; have your people circumscribe the places on the genome to be searched and limit the collection sample to convicted felons only and we can discuss it,” the judge said; thus, already capitulating.
“I need the entire meta data in order to effect better science; it’s in the interest of the criminals themselves that I have more data; you pretend to protect them and their rights but if I do it your way it makes the science less precise and their treatment less reliable. This is the typical liberal,” he paused, “the thing that always happens when liberals are allowed to stick their fingers in where great men are working.
“They always think that balance is prudent. Let me ask you a question about your tao of good governance: if a car is heading at 50 miles an hour toward a large fissure in the road, but heading away from a forest fire which is itself advancing at 50 miles an hour, and the Democrats want to reduce it to 35 miles hour to be safe and the Republicans want to stop and turn around and I say, let’s floor it and that way -according to my calculations of thrust and weight and lift and all that science shit- we can reach 110 mph and escape the fire at our rear and also jump over and clear the lacuna in the road ahead, what do you say? Do you say, well let’s compromise and set it at 48.33 miles an hour, the perfect balance between all three of our views?” the Governor said. He was furious at the democratic model, the entire stupid rationale of compromise.
“Private industry has the luxury of tyranny, our Republic has no such charter,” the judge spoke as if he knew more than he did.
“Bullshit, there is the right way, the proven way, the scientific way and then there is the wrong way, the illiterate way, the superstitious way; and every answer between the right way and the wrong is still wrong; every integer between 0 and 110 is wrong; only 110 is correct based upon on objective scientific and non-part
isan data. Any compromise is as wrong as any other; there is no middle way on this. It’s 110 to jump the break in the road or it’s death by an advancing fire at our rear or death by crashing slowly and stupidly into a sink hole in the road,” the Governor barked.
“You speak with the confidence of a man who measures all of life’s questions by one metric: money. If you’re wrong in business you can write a check to compensate the victims. But in a country, in a state, in a human society, recklessness can injure more than data points, it injures people and the fabric of the society that binds them together. The Constitution is more important that your crime policy or your theories on harm reduction. The principles of a Republic are meant to be a brake on men like you; the self-assured and reckless and frankly anarchic. It’s my duty and my honor to govern you,” the judge nodded, “Governor.”
“You are going to get people killed; that’s all you’re gonna do; you’re going to make me move forward with incomplete information and take larger risks; the risks you pretend to abhor, the risks you think you’re obviating,” the Governor said.
“Maybe, maybe life will be harder for you and everyone else under our Constitution, but that is exactly what our founders intended; aut viam invinium, as Hannibal said,” the judge began to move away again.
“aut faciam, judge, aut faciam ,” the Governor added.
“You know your history, I’ll give you that much. But do you know its lessons as much as its details? Its wisdom as well as its facts?” the judge said with ponderous, moralizing, tone.
“How wise is it to let a once grand species fall into mediocrity and filth? We used to laud great men, now we saddle them with the morality of the herd, the wisdom of crowds, the rule of Pharisees and the myopic and timid. I’ve seen it over and over again, people too scared to act; we’ve become a nation of fucking girls. Dress it up in the haute couture of the Republic, but it’s Athenian sloth and mere Attic commerce vs Spartan discipline and grandeur and I know what side I’m on.”
“You hate your country; you hate democracy, don’t you?” the judge asked sincerely.
“I hate anything that doesn’t work. I hate anyone who refuses to work. It would take work for you to get that we must go all the way on this; you’d have to put your little book of rules away and think for yourself; leaning on the Constitution is like relying on the Bible; or advice your grandmother gave you; it’s not infallible.”
“We could do worse than those three repositories of wisdom, Governor,” the judge said without affect.
“And we can do better than them too!” the executive screamed. “Jesus that’s the entire problem with you people, always trying to hedge your bets and merely not lose instead demanding a win! You play the game not to lose and I play to win. Ge the fuck out of my face before I go mad.”
24. Wolf Mores
I had no more thought of right and wrong than a wolf that prowls the prairie. I hunted because I was hunted myself, and I showed no consideration for anybody or anything because I knew I would receive none
You Can’t Win [Black, Jack]
So without least impulse or shadow of fate
Or aught by Me immutably foreseen
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Paradise Lost [Milton, John]
The right of rebellion against tyranny, honorable Magistrates, has been recognized from the most ancient times to the present day by men of all creeds, ideas and doctrines
La Historia Absolvera Me [Castro, Fidel]
I. 1999 e.v.
The helicopter rode low over the grey rocks here at elevation; the 2-man crew was skimming along in their harnesses with their blasting caps and dynamite and tie-wire. The holes had already been drilled by them earlier that week, and they had hiked back out and hitched a ride with the chopper this AM to save two hours hiking back in.
It was a remote location that had two spires of granite that rose into a V. That talus sluiceway was leading to cascading rock-falls further down the mountain and so the geologists had slated it for blasting on one side then calling for the erecting of a mesh fence 75 feet high and 50 feet wide to be hung on type #10 rebar pins they had drilled and set in concrete three days ago.
They were going to run a line from peak to peak -50 feet across- and then climb out on it -clipped in by carbineer and their harness- and wait as the helicopter brought the mesh in from above for them to hang.
It was too heavy to be lifted up to the cable between the spires; it had to be lowered down. So, the bail of mesh was rolled up tight on location, and as the chopper reached their spot, they got out, and the bird flew away just above the V.
Ian and Lyndon hiked about 130 feet from the landing zone to the bottom of the V and the helicopter dropped down its towing cables. They clipped each to one end of the mesh and cut the wire so it would unfurl as it rose. The chopper blades wafted above in whomps and they ducked as people do -reflexively- even though the blades were 25 feet over their heads as it hovered in place.
As it flew away and above the peaks, they attached their ascenders to each climbing rope they had left in place and then scampered up each side; Ian on the south and Lyndon on the northern spire. From each rebar pin, from the edge of the cliffs, they then clipped onto the fibrous cable suspended between the two as the unfurled mesh descended down to them; its top edge now level with the cable. The bird was 25 feet overhead holding it as steady as the wind would allow. They hung from the cable and began to ferret out tie-wire from their LBE’s and hold the mesh to the line with their hands.
They tied it in place along its edges then further in; unclipping and re-clipping as they moved to secure it all along the top as they were suspended around 70 feet in the air to a cable they had run, attached to pins they had set, in holes they had drilled, on spires they had climbed.
They unhooked the clips from the mesh that attached it to the helicopter and it flew away as it was nearly out of fuel. It cost $1400 an hour for Yenter to rent, so they did not hang around for long. The boys would hike out, not ride out; not as they had come in. They were just paid $25 an hour, so they could take their time and still save the company loads of cash compared to that bird.
After it was secured they rappelled down to the talus and pulled the bottom of the mesh out and laid it upon the rocks. Now -in theory- when rocks fell from above and slid between the two spires they would be trapped by this heavy mesh.
“Looks good,” Ian said with his Irish brogue. Lyndon nodded and agreed, and they then took their packs off and counted each of the one-pound sticks. Each man had eight sticks and blasting caps of 20 each. A detonator was hidden in the trees and would soon be retrieved.
They had to climb up 40 feet to reach the 32 holes, each one would get half a stick and a cap would be sunk into the soft paste of the dynamite, and then sand filled over the stick and cap; tamped down firmly but without manic violence; with a tamper made of wood.
It took them five hours to plant each stick, and the capillaries opened from the absorption of nitroglycerin into the skin on the hand. Breaking sticks always got a little bit of dynamite paste on the hands. Ian wore gloves, but Lyndon did not and so his head ached from the wide-open circulation he felt above the neck. They were at 9,000 feet and the clouds had already moved in.
Once they conjoined each half stick and blasting cap they ran a long wire out from the face of the grey and brown rusty rock with lichen greens and nests abandoned by birds and dust from the drilled holes still clinging to the fissures that caught the rock-pollen from above.
As Ian ran the line behind an outcropping 140 feet away, Lyndon went to get the small detonator. He trudged back through the uneven rock, his bones jamming each other with each step, building little wounds that little healed and grew each end of each bone dense.
Once in place they called on the radio to clear the area. It was perfunctory, unnecessary, as there was not a man in sight within five miles of here; except the rest of their 5-man crew back at the road itself. But, rules
were rules when explosives are used , as they often said; so, they got the A-Ok from the foreman on the radio.
Lyndon held out his hand to the wire-end that Ian held, and Ian placed them in it; then Ian moved across him to hunker down in place with his back against the rock.
Lyndon connected each wire to each pole, then double checked the connection, and tapped Ian on the hardhat.
“Fire in the hole,” he said, and Ian put his ear plugs deeper into the void of the ear canal, leaving his fingers there pressing and making him feel better .
Lyndon twisted the T-top of the detonator and a slight hum and buzz tingled his hand as the fire wire erupted at the palm and down and out as he turned around and watched the ground lightning of the wire burn up. It traveled west toward the rocky effacement in just a second or two.
The wire burns up, it does not merely conduct. It’s more fuse than electrical cord, and so it is red and white and yellow -all ragged like a fragmentary wound on the rocks and among the small grasses and dry dirt- as it reached each hole 40 feet above the ground. The wire climbs the rock much quicker than it seems to move on the ground , he thought, as if it has gained velocity or motivation the closer it gets to the charges.
He thought of the brain itself, and then each neural firing, at 70 meters per second. He thought of the brain hardware like these rocks, modules, separated by just further rock, folds and rises and valleys, he thought of little pathogens or genetic codons drilling into the head to make room for this or that thought, this or that desire, or fear or the planted dynamite of some explosive philosopher or two.
The wire burnt out at each hole and went in under the sand and all was quiet and unmoved for .25 of a second; then the rock seemed at first to implode, to sink in, like a face yielding to a punch, right before it exploded in blood and snot and teeth, jagged teeth, and sounds of pain and doom. And this is what happened next as he watched over the rock that only covered half of him as Ian tried to pull him down to cover.