When he pumped nutrient-rich seawater from a mile-deep current, it spread out on the surface like buckshot from a shotgun. So he anchored his warehouses in three or more lines on top of thousands of the world’s largest inner tubes. His larger fish swam in nets between these lines, and large cages secured to the warehouse platforms confined the smaller fish. Securely anchored, Jackson now had a three-story-tall water break which minimized storm damage to the rest of his fish nets. In all, these warehouses gave him a very long floating island in the middle of nowhere. His largest three lines were even visible to the naked eye from orbit. On Google Earth it looked like Mother Nature was giving humanity the finger.
It was genius!
Well, if he thought of it thirty years ago, it would have been genius. Now it was just painfully obvious.
Jackson applied another, diamond-hard layer of amorphous metal via high velocity oxygen spray to the outer walls of the warehouse to sell to the military, also adding gun slits on the third floor and remote-operated cameras at all four corners. A spy blimp tied to the roof would monitor their area. With obstacles to prevent suicide bombers driving speeding vehicles, it was as invulnerable as a tank. Inside, the first floor had enough room to accommodate a dozen vehicles, while troops slept on the second floor and recreated on the third floor.
Jackson’s public relations team went city to city, lending paintball weapons to 1200 volunteers who formed a circle just outside of range, then attacked from all sides. Inside, Jackson’s 12 shooters used the paintball equivalent of heavy machine guns, mowing the civilians down like fish in a barrel. Jackson’s team never even had to expose themselves, and walked out afterwards inevitably paint-free, having defeated one hundred times their number. This story was especially powerful when recounted afterwards by a local paint-soiled TV reporter, still high on adrenaline, who attacked with 1199 others. What a fucking rush.
It was not hard to imagine hundreds of these perched on strategic passage ways, hilltops, and mountain ridges along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, each remote-operating attack drones to monitor their designated area. These armored buildings could shelter armored vehicles that intercept potential enemies, drop off Ranger teams, or pick up a malfunctioning Predator drone. One helicopter company could support a couple dozen stand-alone armored buildings on the Afghan side of the border. If America wants to stop thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda from crossing the border, this covered the most territory at the least cost.
President McCain loved the idea and placed a big order, only to have President Palin try to renege on it later.
After experimenting with several versions, Wal-Mart made all of their new buildings out of amorphous metal designed specifically for their stores, super stores, and neighborhood markets. Wal-Mart could finish a 200,000 square foot superstore in a fraction of the time and half of the $35,000 million it used to cost them. They not only put organic solar on the roofs and outer walls, but on top of their huge parking lots, with micro wind turbines on the roofs in windy locations. Most of these stores produced more electricity than they used, becoming micro power plants. Which interested Home Depot and others.
Business was good. Really good.
Then, in October, Jackson’s father shat on his parade by showing him laser ranger software that gave a greater than 50-50 chance that some asteroid fragments would strike Earth. Or, more likely, water, since water covers 70% of the Earth’s surface. Water covers so much of Earth’s surface that a random meteorite had a 3-to-1 probability of hitting water versus land. Throw in lakes, rivers, glaciers, and the frozen poles and as little as 20% of “Earth’s” surface is actually “earth”. Naming the planet “Water” would have been more accurate.
In light of the new danger, Jackson now looked at his warehouse-hangers and saw a bomb shelter the size of a high school gym. Well, with space rocks raining down unpredictably around the world, you can’t have too many of those. He therefore triple-shifted production of the hangers, converted all of his amorphous metal plants to make them, and paid the five factories in China that were making his car frames to instead make asteroid shelters for the rest of the year. Even with the right equipment and technical expertise, changing products quickly was fucking expensive. Still, knowing that millions of lives could be saved, Jackson paid eight other companies that had amorphous metal facilities to churn out his shelters for him. Virtually overnight, Jackson monopolized global bulk amorphous metal production.
Now, instead of a few hundred, he could now make several thousand shelters before Judgment Day.
Except most of these other factories were too small to make hangers the size of a gym. So Jackson had the smaller factories make asteroid shelters the exact size of a 20 foot shipping container, which conveniently fit in most garages. Or, in his case, under the garage. He wanted to make millions of them, but they needed to serve a purpose after Judgment Day. Although it was not a shipping container, it could be used as one, even though amorphous metal costs several times as much as steel. But calling it a shipping container would only confuse people.
So critics called it a shed.
But instead of snapping together several pieces, they molded the entire shed at once to maximize its structural integrity. These smaller asteroid shelters could be easily blown away if not well secured. However, every American garage sits on a thick concrete and steel foundation. Every shed came with four amorphous metal poles. Owners simply used a jackhammer to drill four holes a meter into the garage floor, place the poles that fit into each corner of the shed, then pour concrete into the four holes.
His “asteroid shelters”, as he cleverly renamed them, were extremely heat resistant, could withstand all but the largest falling rocks, and had no glass. Properly secured to solid bedrock among hilltops, even tidal waves would just wash over them. In short, nothing could protect people better. Given the growing worldwide hysteria, and his monopoly on amorphous metal asteroid shelters, Jackson became world famous.
And rich. Because people who believe the world will end are willing to spend whatever it takes to survive.
Everyone naturally wanted them, as every mayor, congressman, and governor quickly found out. Democrats championed a special $100 billion appropriations to buy or build asteroid shelters (not necessarily Jackson’s). Republicans fought it all the way, from committee to conference, which really pissed off a terrified public.
Large companies and foreign governments got most of them, bidding up the price to obscene levels. Before September, Jackson sold mega-hangers to Wal-Mart for as little as $15 million each. Now, individual purchases went for $50 million and large orders for over $100 million. The larger the order the higher the price because time and supply were so limited. CEOs thought nothing of spending their shareholder’s money to protect themselves, their families, and their operations. Governors had little choice but to act like they were doing everything possible to protect their constituents. And foreign governments spent whatever it took. Everyone lobbied Jackson -- governors, CEOs, hedge fund managers, billionaires, celebrities, heads of foreign states, -- and anyone who could do it in person did so. Jackson never knew he had so many friends.
Like most governors, Cooper bought as many hangers as he could. He didn’t even mind that Jackson made him bid just like everyone else. What he did mind was Jackson making another fucking fortune. And not with porn, guns, drugs, stocks, or gambling. No, Jackson was making bank selling fucking warehouses! He could call them anything he wanted to, but they were just metallic barns for Christ’s sake. Which made Cooper all the more determined to not enrich him any more.
Not one single fucking dollar.
Especially since Jackson organized a well provisioned and well defended “survival camp” in northern Canada where he rented the sheds for a million bucks apiece.
Perhaps what pissed him off the most was his wife paid a fucking million for one to protect her children and grandchildren. Even her father, the cheapskate banker, forked over a million.
Seei
ng Jackson’s laptop on, Cooper quickly cross the room and instinctively sat down to discover what dirty secrets Jackson had on his computer. Like many politicians, he was an incurable busy-body. Which is how the Patriot Act got passed.
Email! Excellent. Cooper went through his friend’s shit.
Jackson returned to his underground shed to find Cooper sitting arrogantly in his chair and looking intently at his laptop. Cooper had that “I’m gonna get laid” look, which is superior to the “I just got laid” look. Jackson cursed himself for not locking his computer with a password. How many times had he lectured his staff on computer security, only to fail himself when the most dangerous man in his world comes to visit, his good friend and strong ally, the next possible president of the United States?
Jackson quickly descended the ladder to distract Cooper from whatever had evidently gripped his interest.
“Let’s get started on learning how you’re gonna win the war with China!” he shouted in the small room.
And that was the real reason Cooper was there, or at least that was the reason that Jackson invited him there, to learn how to delay the war that Palin was about to botch up. After blowing trillions on the American occupation of Iraq, America literally could not afford another Republican-managed war. Since Cooper refused to talk about the incoming asteroid, the upcoming war with China was the only thing that could prod Cooper into visiting him.
Cooper didn’t even look up, or in any way acknowledge that Jackson, a huge man, yelled loudly in a small basement with no windows. The bad feeling in Jackson’s gut grew worse, as he walked up to and kicked the flimsy card table and screamed, “What the fuck are you doing going through my email?”
Jackson needed to stop Cooper from reading, but he got nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. El crappo. Cooper ignored Jackson like a non-voter.
Cooper, apparently deaf and mute, but not blind, continued speed reading as he scrolled down. He seemed oblivious to everything but the fascinating document in front of him. Jackson, desperate to assess the damage, moved behind Cooper to see what he was reading.
Ah hell.
He had only a moment to organize his thoughts until Cooper finished scrolling. Cooper then twisted in the cheap plastic chair and angrily asked, “what do you need one hundred nuclear spaceships for?”
When Jackson didn’t answer, he asked it again:
“Henry, what the fuck do you need one hundred nuclear spaceships for?”
Jackson sighed. This was going to be a long day.
14
Since the best defense is an aggressive offense, Jackson summoned his anger and shouted back, “What the fuck are you doing reading my email?”
Jackson, a 6’4” tall, barrel-chested workout-a-holic, clenched his huge fists and flexed his muscles under his faded blue jeans and tight t-shirt. That usually worked.
Cooper wasn’t buying it and Jackson, for the millionth time, wondered why he only intimidated unimportant people. His parents, wife, children – hell, even his grandchildren felt no fear of him. If he yelled at his grandchildren, his daughter would turn it back on him and say, “oh, grandpa just needs a hug.” Everyone in his family knew he was just a big softy. But his inability to instill respect with his strongest political ally was a professional, and not a personal, failure. And that had real consequences beyond six year olds changing his TV channel.
“Nuclear spaceships, Henry? I know you’re greedy and secretive, but what the hell are you thinking? Is this your plan for beating China?”
Whoa. Secretive, yes, but greedy? He was very good at making money – that was no secret. But he gave away around ten percent of his annual profit, mostly in the form of his protein bread. So he was surprised because he always thought that politicians like Cooper were the money hungry ones. Cooper had been squeezing money out of him since his campaign for Texas governor, and became quite insistent since deciding to run for president, as if Jackson owed him, and not the other way around.
Jackson honestly liked and respected Cooper. But, like many successful politicians, he felt that Cooper was terminally ungrateful. The irony is that, as conservative Democrats, one of the things they railed against was the entitlement mentality.
Jackson honestly believed that Cooper would not have won either of his governorships without his help. Jackson knew he had a larger-than-life personality, and his campaigning for Cooper generated tens of millions in free publicity. What consultants call “earned media.”
So for Cooper to accuse him of greed was nothing short of chutzpa. Which, as his Jewish pollster informed him, is a Hebrew word about a guy who kills his parents then, when caught, pleads for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan. Chutzpa.
Cooper was virtually ignored before Jackson raised his profile. Jackson was a popular Democratic governor of Arizona and appeared more Texan than any of the five Texans in the race. With his outsized personality, bulked up body, and vast fortune, he looked and acted very Texan. And since Cooper was, in effect, running against Bush in Texas, Jackson knew that the only way to win was to go over the top and catch people’s imaginations. Or at least their attentions.
Except for presidential elections, only hardcore partisans pay attention to campaigns because they care about the issues. Getting everyone else to pay attention requires entertaining them, usually by throwing spectacles or by picking a fight. So Jackson picked a fight with President Bush, who was far less popular than his hand-picked replacement, the guy actually on the ballot. People love fights and the blow-by-blow. They want to see how a fighter responds to pain, insults, and body blows, and they rally behind a fighter who rises from near-defeat to kick ass. The quickest way to see someone’s true character is for someone else to attack it.
What made the 2006 governors race so fun was that Jackson, more than Cooper, was providing that fight, but he was beating up former governor Bush rather than the current governor. It was a proxy kicking the ass of a proxy. Which allowed the verbal blows to go lower and hit harder before it felt unseemly.
Reporters didn’t cover Cooper’s campaign until Jackson started sticking it to Bush in the heart of Bush country. The uproar was immediately, vicious, and unprecedented, even by Texan standards. This not only made news, which is free publicity, but made anything Cooper say seem moderate by comparison.
Campaigning for Cooper in 2006 was a turning point for Jackson because progressive bloggers had become a big influence within the base, and they suddenly noticed him when he started whacking Bush with such gusto. The top progressive blog, www.dailykos.com, saw more traffic than the top several Republican blogs combined, meaning progressive bloggers were far stronger in the Democratic Party than conservative bloggers were in the GOP, who instead reached out to their rank-and-file via political talk radio and cable news.
Most progressive bloggers saw D.C. Democrats as spineless capitulators, either unwilling or unable to stand up to the Radical Right Reactionaries. Then here comes the first Democratic governor of Arizona in decades, bitch slapping Bush day after day. Bloggers loved it so much that they gave him a keynote speaker slot at the national 2008 progressive bloggers summit, “Netroots Nation”. Running for DNC chair, Jackson knew he would have to knock their socks off. That’s difficult enough on an easy day, but he was going against real progressive heroes like Howard Dean, Al Gore, and the Rude Pundit.
Jackson knocked the ball out of the stadium. Instead of discussing policy, he brought the roof down by repeating the jacksonisms that he had compiled over the years. Like Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he became an instant hero and the first choice of bloggers to chair the Democratic Party after Howard Dean, who endorsed Jackson after he promised to expand the 50 State Strategy into a 435 District Strategy. In return, DNC Chairman Jackson sent out regular email blasts to everyone in the DemZilla database urging them to check out the 100 largest progressive blogs, allied organizations like College Dems, progressive think tanks like the Progressive Policy Institute, and progressive maga
zines like The Nation and Mother Jones.
15
Jackson’s speech at Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas:
“It takes a strong man to admit he is wrong, and Bush clearly is not that man. W has sold us so many whoppers that Burger King must be paying him a commission. He dances so well around the truth that rappers are jacking his moves. Mr. 20% rides his bike so much apparently to practice back-pedaling.
“I’ve known guys who were legally blind and legally deaf, but Bush is the first who is legally dumb. Blind and deaf to the suffering of working Americans, Bush is the Helen Keller of presidents. If Bush gets any lamer, he’ll qualify for disability. The Worst President Ever must be anesthetized, because he sure as hell doesn’t feel anyone’s pain. Mr. Delusional doesn’t talk to us like he’s an idiot; he talks to us like we’re the idiot. Twenty years of frying neurons with drink and drugs has made this cliché-spewer talk as if Jerry lost one of his kids. You can tell when he is ad-libbing by the rivers of sweat pouring down his face. He’d be speechless if he stuck to the truth. He needs a script in his hands to keep his feet out of his mouth. Cheney’s Bitch has become the Milli Vanilli of presidents. Question: does Bush inhale when he tries to blow smoke up your ass?
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