“Now we dashed across an open lane and I was knocked down by a slug from Von Killington’s death machine. Private McZap reloaded, muttering specific revenges behind a nearby cobblestone wall. Von Killington advanced, a walking grim reaper of a man if ever there was one.
“Von Killington jerked his weapon upright, taking careful aim at me as I lay prone in the lane where I had fallen. I would not close my eyes and ignore my demise. I had soldiered for the Queen lo’ these twenty years and I would meet my end bravely. It was both my place and duty to be present at my death with as much swagger as one might muster for the occasion.
“In the haze of battle, I was aware that it was a summer’s late morning. The bees buzzed lazily in the heavy air. The grass smelled freshly cut and earthy. In the lane beyond my enemy, the dust began to erupt into the air in plumes racing towards Von Killington and me.
“Our pilot had finished off the Nationalist boy and returned to the battlefield. He zoomed in from above and targeted the Colonel. It was our finest hour. Bullets walked down the lane closing in on Colonel Von Killington, who turned to meet this avenging airborne angel of death.
“There are moments, moments on the battlefield, lads. Maybe you will see them, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll get yours in the back from a sneaky commando like Private McZap. Or maybe the Nationalist version of the Ham and Egger - the Eier and Schinkenmeister or some such - will mete it out to you in full as you look him in the eye whilst trying to reload. I don’t know where or how, lads, but when that day comes, keep your eyes open, wide open; because on the battlefield there are heroes and there are the moments that make a hero.
“Von Killington waived his rifle wildly as if to signal my pilot, who then, confused I can only assume, jerked his plane into a high climb breaking off what had only moments before been an assured kill of our enemy. I, who had been spared an invitation to death, was once more invited again to high tea with the Grim Reaper.
“Von Killington, grinning death, smiling death, returned to our unfinished business. Nearby I heard McZap load the last shell into his elephant gun of a sniper rifle. Taking aim he would have enough time for one shot.
“Von Killington’s gun reduced the cobblestone wall to pebbles as McZap rose and took aim. McZap’s weapon dry-fired. Click, click, click, lads. Click, Click, Click.
“As I said, lads, there are moments. A battle is made up of many of them; some great, some heroic and some simply hilarious, at least to your enemy. Von Killington standing near the village stable a few feet away raised his arms in victory and cheered through his cigar clamped mouth. I commented, inwardly, on his excellent dental hygiene.
“McZap cursed and jostled the malfunctioning rifle, but any reform to its recalcitrant behavior would be too late in coming as Colonel Von Killington raised his slug-spitting dragon and drew a bead on us both.
“Bravely now!” I urged McZap who seemed angrier with his weapon than at Von Killington. “Bravely now, face your death as the Queen would have you!”
“A single bead of sweat drew a line down the dust that caked Von Killington’s shiny skull beneath his death’s head pirate hat.
“Then the stable exploded as Major Hazard’s tank, too big for the narrow lane, found another entrance into our final act. Someone’s dream of an equine contribution to an agrarian economy disintegrated into so much rubble and dust.
“Moving fast and loud, the tank thundered through the ancient brick and mortar of the stable. It barely touched the ground as it vaulted at top speed across the lane where Von Killington stood, weapon raised in his moment of final victory.
“In the summer sun, lazy and mindless of man’s eternal struggle, the bees buzzed, a cow lowed, and some chickens continued their myopic complaints. But Von Killington was gone. Crushed beneath the remorseless tread of the tank.
“Major Duke Hazard with his sunglasses, blond hair, bomber jacket, and newly acquired Nationalist Field Commandant’s Saucer Cap, complete with scrambled eggs and braid resting atop his square head, was also gone. His tank, rumbling, smoking and spitting fire had passed on, seeking its next battle. He had finally “gotten that hat” it seemed. From somewhere and why I had not the foggiest.
“Ears,” sighed Sergeant Major Pepper. “Ears, I was there.”
Sergeant Major Pepper tapped out his pipe against the warped metal flower of a destroyed nationalist AA gun, the reason we had come to Wienerfurt, and issued the order to form up for the next march, the next battle. Soon it would be our turn to display our swagger, should we have the mustard, despite the outcome.
About Nick Cole
Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books. In 2016, Nick’s book CTRL ALT Revolt won the Dragon Award for Best Apocalyptic novel.
@NickColeBooks
NickColeBooks.com
Shirt Story
Arlan Andrews
“¡Ven acá! ¡Ven acá!” Che Guevara’s high-pitched, girlish voice yelled at me from the closet. “OK, I’m coming! I’m coming!” I yelled back.
I stumbled from my bed and opened the folding closet door. There, amidst my other darkened clothing, a pulsating red glow showed me where the offending shirt was hanging. I pulled it from the hanger and tried to focus my sleepy eyes on the iconic image of the legendary revolutionary. The Che figure glared at me and opened its mouth wide. “In English please,” I interrupted before the grito began again.
“We do not have the revolution to make friends!” the image shouted. I thought he sounded like my eleven-year-old niece.
“Quiet, please, Señor Che, and buenos noches,” I whispered, giving the password venceremos. The shirt complied, as ordered, both sound and lights dimming to darkness. At least that much of its programming hadn’t been ’jacked, I sighed as I put it back on the clothes rod. I couldn’t afford to have this SHIRT sounding off to the authorities. I was keeping ol’ Che and a few other unauthorized ’jacked protest SHIRTs for closer study, to determine how they were fabricated and how I might track down their makers more easily For sure, neither the TeaPolice nor the BlueNoses would approve of an unauthorized SHIRT. Especially in the closet of a Facilitate.
Arising from that disturbed sleep two hours later, I prepped for work, finally donning an appropriately programmed work SHIRT. My sleeve indicators were nominal, meaning that all monitoring and cooling systems were in Good Order, or GO; the day’s PBA news videos were bright and clear. In the bright daylight of the humid Waco day outside my cool, dry apartment, I undid my UniSike from its pedestal locker, let the wheeled transporter stabilize, stepped onto its platform, grabbed onto the vertical hold pole, and began my rounds. At the brisk pace of 5 kph, the Sike was providing me with a nice breeze, making up a little bit for the sweltering Texas sun and humidity. A touch of natural magnolias scented the air momentarily, quickly overwhelmed by the less pleasant programmed olfactory outputs of digital floral displays surrounding the neighboring apartments, a typical ostentation in my run-down sector of the city.
Enjoying the breeze and the motion for all that, I was letting the Sike take me around slowly until I received my day’s orders. Sky blue SHIRT with matching uniform and cap for the world to see and envy, both E-M hand weapons charged, informatics at the ready, I accessed the World Order Reformation Department’s special People’s Blue Assembly network and reviewed the latest classified information. WORD had it that an unlicensed manufacturer was distributing ’jacked SHIRTs somewhere in this region, and of course that had to be stopped. It was my job.
Text, video, voice and vibration – T3V – informed me: “WORD has skinned all local fabber traffic and concludes that illegal activity is ongoing within 0.5 kilometer of the following location,” followed by coordinates that nearly overlapped mine. “Stop!” I yelled, and the Sike did just that, nearly throwing me off
. I disembarked unsteadily, hand weapons at the ready, while the Sike meandered over to a utility pole to observe and recharge.
As I steadied myself, a quick scan of the surroundings showed me to be in the middle of a potholed street, low apartment buildings in all directions. A glance at my sleeve showed a WORD satellite view; it was drawing a crosshairs on a garage located in an alleyway behind me. Within thirty seconds I was kicking in the side door of that garage, pointing my Emmy guns at an Anglo and three darker-skinned persons, all male, sitting at fabber stations. They were certainly guilty, as WORD had already known: the racks of glowing, muttering SHIRTs were proof enough.
“Under arrest, all of you. You have only the right to comply or you will be hurt.” My SHIRT was displaying the search warrant in English, Spanish, Farsi, Pashtun, and nine other languages. I paused until the same announcement had been made in each of them, all the while nearly gagging at the mélange of body odor from the perps and the tang of ozone from the fabber power supplies.
Holding his arms over his head to prevent an authorized hurt -- within my power to administer -- the grubby, bearded Anglo said, “Oh, shit.” I didn’t know whether he was expressing disgust, or had correctly identified my authority.
Sometimes, I encountered both, as the Ranking Facilitate of the Waco Division of the Office of Safety, Health and Informatic Transformity (we Facilitates never use the acronym), a joint entity established by the competing governments of the US of A, which are, of course, the TeaParliament in Round Rock, and the People’s Blue Assembly in Boston.
After the Near Civil War in the early Hindsight Years of the 2020s, the World Order Reformation Department, or WORD, had been established by the Convention of Caracas. Back then, the old US of A agreed to have for itself two parallel governments, the Blue and the Red. Communications technology had already obsoleted governments based solely on geography, so the TP and the PBA ran all their physical agencies – like Defense, FBI, and yes, OSHIT -- as joint ventures, while their cyber services -- the real bonds among their citizen adherents – remained solely in each government’s control. As happens when there are disparate physical systems, there were interface problems. I saw one of these walking toward me.
With the perps already roughly roped around the larger hold pole on the police version of the Sike, I noticed a female Facilitate arriving on the scene. I recognized her as a newbie, a TP adherent by her rose-tinged SHIRT and matching uniform, and thus a natural irritant to me, given my PBA loyalty. We were in a joint physical venture, of course, but there was always tension between adherents of different governments. Here in the Republic of Texas, I was usually outnumbered by TPs, but that was part of the job. “Facilitate Emmons, I welcome you to observe my capture of these recals.” She emanated the faintest essence of lilac; I couldn’t tell whether the perfume was natural or digital.
She nodded briskly. “Mostly radicalized adherents of TP, I observe. I am embarrassed by these types.” I smiled, but what did she expect deep in the heart down here, Cambridge professors?
At the police station, we sorted out the illegal SHIRTs with the help of the Waco PD detective squad. Most of the SHIRTs were various protest products, government-issued units hijacked to display unauthorized messages, videos and vibrations. Some were newly-made, which puzzled me. I’d always thought the nanotronics technologies were ultra-secret. I saw variations of my Che SHIRT, this one calling him a terrorist, though, with a red circle and slash-mark over his face, and videos showing him executing children with a pistol. Another loudly exclaimed, “Bring Back the InterNet!” Others didn’t have audio, but showed violent scenes from the Near Civil War, mostly radically TP-oriented, though a few were sneaked in that had PBA affiliations, namely some with strangely-decorated letter O’s and some proudly-displayed old Presidents and politicos, obviously progressive heroes I couldn’t identify, either by video or audio.
After going through hundreds of these SHIRTs, one cop said in exasperation, “I see that a lot of them are violent and subversive, and that might appeal to some radicals. But some of them have nothing but pictures of buildings and monuments and seashores displayed on them. A benjamin each at the GreatWall Mart. Why would anybody want to buy them?” Facilitate Emmons and I exchanged glances. We both knew that a TP adherent would only recognize the displays and symbols and audio generated for TP adherents; the same for PBAs. One set of adherents literally could not see or hear what the other government was displaying. A generic display was presented to anyone who was not an adherent of the particular government. I never knew how this was done; something in genetic tuning, I believe, or another nanotronic secret.
This most important feature of the SHIRTs was scrupulously avoided by government-controlled media, which is to say, all media. Government-approved (and funded) intellectuals, academics, corporations and consultants often knew, but never admitted, that neither government’s adherents could see or hear what the other government’s adherents experienced. Every government, cabal and control authority across the planet had adopted this practice. Objectors were always silenced, according to the traditions of the nations involved.
And why SHIRTs? SHIRTs -- Standardized Human Interactive Remote Terminals -- were a natural result of so many competing, overlaid governments, with complex overlaid laws, rules and regulations. After Caracas, both of the US of A governments realized that the demands of parallel governing bodies, especially those intended to guarantee health, safety and environmental justice for their citizens, were so complex that simple humans alone could not understand, much less abide by, all of them.
And so, SHIRTs ensured compliance with world society’s new compassionate oversight philosophy. Worn like traditional clothing over one’s upper body and arms, their nanotronic systems monitored physiological, emotional, neurological and psychological conditions, displayed helpful hints and laws, warned about impending dangers, and reported when illegal actions were observed or sometimes, even contemplated. And by default, each competing government issued only its own news and entertainment content. For the first few years they worked fairly well: crimes, accidents, fraud, abuse and molestations dropped almost to nothing in the US of A, among both TP and PBA adherents. Worldwide, the same.
Then things began to go wrong.
OSHIT’s motto is: NO SHIRT, NO SERVICE. Our ongoing training always repeats the SHIRT Commander’s lecture: “Given the natural perversity of some recalcitrants who choose not to allow society to function smoothly, some SHIRTs were hijacked, their displays converted for entertainment, pornography, protest and the like; their sensors and monitors rigged to transmit counterfactual metrics to the TP and PBA monitoring systems. Thus we Facilitates, we must monitor and control these degenerates who are trying to ruin the good order maintained by the TP and the PBA. We also carry a burden – alone of adherents in both governments, we can experience everything displayed on both TP and PBA SHIRTs. With so much conflicting information, we may become conflicted ourselves, while protecting our citizen adherents. Hence, our intense counseling and high pay.” He didn’t add what all we Facilitates, newbies and oldtimers alike, add: “And we drink a lot.”
After Facilitate Emmons and I had documented and destroyed the illegal SHIRTs, observed the expeditious real-time sentencing and subsequent vivi-dismemberment of the perps, we met at the cafeteria and discussed the confusion the detectives had shown. “They were really disturbed that some SHIRTs violate what they consider established truths,” she said over decoffee. “Do you ever wonder how our parents and others even survived back before Caracas and the Hindsight?”
I was enjoying her lilac scent; all natural, I had concluded. Like the rest of her, I bet. I nodded and said aloud, “You mean, when everyone had access to all information? Contradictory ideas, fictional presentations, unapproved documentaries, misinformation, outright lies, all over the old Net?” I kept my voice not much louder than a whisper. Though my own SHIRT was programmed for almost no censorship, Facilitates usually didn’t press the enve
lope. “That must have been rough,” I said. “How did one make decisions with such unfiltered information overload?”
Facilitate Emmons looked at me closely, nibbling at her lower lip. Being close to her non-confrontationally for the first time, I noticed her green eyes, pale skin, freckles, red hair wisping down from under her cap. Her TP-variant uniform clung attractively in ways I hadn’t noticed in the excitement of the apprehension. Strange, but though she was a newbie, I felt as if she and I were somehow connected. “No, what I really meant was, how they survived. They had thirty years of uninterrupted Net access, hundreds of millions of websites, thousands of those old printed newspapers and magazines, mostly all uncensored. And yet they lived, and laughed and loved.” She stopped, looking at me directly, searching.
By now, I noticed that her TP-oriented SHIRT was putting out videos and messages that I knew my fellow PBA adherents would not appreciate: riots and smoke and fire and chemical spills around the country; continuing armed conflicts in a hundred places around the world; another disaster in space. All of course, with anti-PBA slants. I was used to this different approach to reality, but now it seemed a bit more strident than usual.
I was not usually fully aware of my own SHIRT’s content, aside from the metric patches and controls, but my sleeve displays and chest showed much more peaceful scenes. I had an idea; a quick stroke on my sleeve showed me an overlay of PBA vs. TP content, something I had never requested before, a feature that only Facilitates could access. Strange, but every violent incident from the TP network overlaid a peaceful vista on mine from the PBA feed. And every unpleasant one from my PBA was similarly matched with a tranquil one from the TP. What was going on?
Freedom's Light: Short Stories Page 21