THE MUSHROOM MAN

The Mushroom Man
by Keith Giles

This week's "Elephant Words" burst fiction.
See image"
Here

After years of running the diamond smuggling cartels throughout Africa, the mysterious Nicolai managed to operate completely through only two men, and of those only one had ever seen him face to face. One man was Alphonse Meridian, a short barrel-chested assassin who only received orders from Nicolai via telephone, and the other was Randolph Siegel, Nicolai's accountant.

The closest Interpol got to him was an undercover agent who entered Nicolai's operation on the ground in Nigeria as a gun-runner. After two solid years proving himself worthy Siegel promoted him to an overseer in their diamond smuggling operation as a pilot. The agent, David Camp, was perfect for the job. His experience flying helicopters into combat zones in Korea proved invaluable to Nicolai's operation and his fame soon spread throughout the organization.

Five years later the agent was installed as Siegel's personal bodyguard and he occasionally flew a private jet to high-level negotiations throughout Europe and Asia.

Interpol nearly threw the switch to take down Siegel and the exposed portion of the operation, but Camp assured them he was only months away from a face-to-face opportunity with Nicolai, and he was right.

Siegel confided in the agent one night that Nicolai was fearful of being identified by the authorities and had scheduled a surgery to change his facial appearance and forever disappear. This meant that, once the operation was complete, Nicolai would become invisible, even to Siegel. Camp knew their time was running out. If they ever hoped to catch Nicolai he time was ripe to act.

Under orders from his superiors Camp assisted in the abduction of Siegel's wife who lived in a large private estate in southern Spain. A small team of five black ops agents hit the water one mile off the coast of his private villa and snorkled onto the beach two hours before dawn. From there they made their way through the forest behind the house and took her and a twelve year old daughter out at gunpoint.

Siegel received the news of the abduction when Camp revealed his identity and demanded to know where Nicolai's surgery was scheduled to occur. Siegel held up brilliantly, even under torture, and only relented when his wife's middle finger was presented to him in a bloody newspaper.

When Camp arrived at the private doctor's office where Nicolai's surgery was scheduled he found a room splattered with blood and two dead bodies, one being the plastic surgeon and the other, presumably, Nicolai. But Interpol could never be sure if the body was indeed that of Nicolai or some other man's dead body planted there to throw them off the trail.

Soon the news of Nicolai's death spread throughout Europe and the power vacuum inspired a bloody internal power struggle. Siegel served only five years in minimum security prison due to his willingness to share a few names and details of Nicolai's operation, although he never divulged the location of Nicolai's massive wealth, claiming that only the now deceased kingpin knew the actual bank account numbers and passwords.

Camp received a commendation and was put on a desk job, which he never liked, and eventually he retired from the business and took a flat in central London.

One day, roughly fourteen years after the biggest undercover assignment of his life, Camp was out on the street, enjoying the rare moment of sunshine and he saw Siegel. He was sitting at a local farmer's market behind a booth selling homegrown mushrooms.

Camp stood across the street staring intently until he was sure it was really Siegel. He studied the mannerisms, the way the old man held his cigarette. The way he brushed his hair away from his eyes. The way he coughed and spat. Finally he placed his hands in his pockets and walked slowly across the street towards his old nemesis.

"Hello Siegel," he said calmly. The man looked at him through old, tired eyes and it took him a moment to connect the face and the voice. Siegel said nothing at first, only nodded slowly and looked away, flicking ash off his imported cigarette with his middle finger and watching the specks float to the sidewalk like isolated flakes of snow.

Slowly Siegel looked back and this time he was smiling. His teeth were yellowed from years of nicotine. They had the color of an old bruise against his weathered lips. He coughed and spat and then looked back up at Camp. "Would you like to know something funny," he said.

"After what we've both seen, I think a good laugh would be in order," Camp said.

"After you abducted my wife and daughter she left me for another man," he said. "She said she could never trust me after finding out that I had allowed you to find her and our child. I can't say I blame her, of course."

Camp waited for the punchline. "I thought you were going to tell me something funny," he said.

Siegel took a last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the concrete, crushing it out with a few pivots of his boot toe. He looked off into the sky, over Camp's shoulder at the skyline. "Looks like rain again," he said to know one in particular. Then he refocused his weathered eyes on Camp's face and smiled. "I suppose it's funny depending on your perspective," Siegel said. "My wife, she was Greek. Her maiden name was Nicolai."

Camp stood there staring at Siegel's mushrooms.

"In the end," Siegel said, "I think it's funny that Nicolai gave you the finger."

Camp found it hard to laugh as Siegel's cough erupted into a mocking hack.

"At least you got the finger," he said again through his uncontrollable cough and cackle.

Camp could only stand there with his hands in his pockets as the first few cold drops of rain began to patter against his shoulders.

*
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Oppression by Keith Giles

Short fiction for this week's image over at
Elephant Words

SEE IMAGE HERE


Oppression by Keith Giles

This is how it always starts. First it's one sign. Company policy. Nothing I can do about it, M'am. And then, before you know it, sooner than you'd expect, the martial law orders come down in the middle of the night and policemen in riot gear are riding through the streets firing tear gas at college students and pummelling the innocent in unison.

No one ever takes responsibility for these things. The media blames the government, the politicians blame the media, and the average joe suffers. People like you and me, we're only necessary to keep the machine pumping. Our muscles operate the conveyor belts of progress and our lusts fuel the economy built on the consumption of taxable vice.

The angel spoke to me again last night. Couldn't sleep at all. My damn tooth again. I could put pressure on that side of my head and feel the hot infection spread beneath the skin, radiating over my skull.

I was in the bathroom dabbing the last of the Ambusol on the molar when she began to sing to me. Just like last time only louder. "Send them to me," she sang. The colors of the vision were liquid joy. They spun in the air between the mirror and my head, just out of reach. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep to the heavenly music, but I couldn't bear to shut out the colors.

It only lasted ten, maybe fifteen minutes but when it was over my eyes were full of tears. I blinked them away, letting them run like hot rivers down my swollen cheeks.

Donnie had given me a pound of dynamite last year, before he jumped off the bank building, before Janet left him for that guitarist. I found it under my bed, wrapped in an old U2 t-shirt. It smelled like a pair of old boots my dad used to make me shine for him every Saturday afternoon.

"Send them to me," the angel sang. I couldn’t get that music out of my head. All night long it resonated, echoing in my mind like a song you hate but cannot keep humming once you've heard it playing over the radio.

I shoved the old dynamite, still bundled in the t-shirt, into my backpack and zipped it shut along with a picture of me and Donnie from his birthday party last winter and a letter I had written for my Mother but never mailed.

The next day, at the DMV, I went into the bathroom and unspooled the lump, held together with two orbits of duct tape, and lit the lead fuse with my dad's old Zippo. I always loved the "Clicht" and "Snicht" of the chrome cover as it opened and closed. I felt like a Soviet spy purging the world of capitalism and mindless oppression.

As I watched the fuse sizzle down I heard the angel sing to me again. It was faint at first, but soon I could hear her soft whisper, "The poison in my veins sang like jaded copper bees, the blood it spilled rain down in drops, rained down my arms, filled up my sleeves…"

Tiny sparks were popping intermittently out of the fuse. Tiny tendrils of smoke spun off of each flashing ember and faded slowly into the air above my head like silver daydreams.

I unlocked the bathroom door and tossed the lump high into the air, underhanded like tossing a grapefruit to a friend across the room. Before it hit the ground it erupted into a shower of force and light. Kaleidoscope of color and fury set to the sound of angels in joyous release.

"Here they come," I said to the angels, just before all of the lights went out.


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Richard Kadrey - Master of Burst Sci-Fi

Richard Kadrey is the master of what I call "Burst Sci-Fi" which is the art of writing short stories that fit onto a single page yet are more intriguing and beguiling than any novel-length story you've ever read.

Kadrey manages to pack more great ideas, with exquisite language, into a small space than anyone I've ever known.

Proof? Here it is:

MUDROSTI (the burning satellite re-entry)
http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shortshorts/kadrey17.html

And this:
DOG BOYS (the pre-"Desolation Jones" short):
http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shortshorts/kadrey21.html

And this:
SURFING THE KHUMBU (mega-cool sci/fi spy girl action):
http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shortshorts/kadrey27.html

Go. Read. Marvel.

Kadrey is a master.

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FOR THE JACKALS

FOR THE JACKALS
By Keith Giles

The damn machine sputtered and shook violently before it back-fired and died with a slow belch of black smoke. I sat back and let the great yellow beast roll a few more feet before it finally ground itself to a stop. The sound of the gravel crunching beneath the knobby black tires was like the hot sizzle of grease in a hot skillet.

I closed my eyes and for a moment I imagined I wasn't covered in dirt and sweat. I was at home, my family was alive and this damn war had never happened.

My hand strayed absently to the raised scar across my stomach. It was still tender. The Jackals had inserted their toxic sacks into my abdomen before I could escape. The rest of my family hadn't been so lucky. Their bodies were already providing nutrients to the genetic embryos growing inside them. In a few weeks they'd be cut open to harvest the biological weapons inside and discarded into the pit behind the barn.

When I opened my eyes reality snapped back into place. There were only two rounds in the pistol and my canteen was mostly condensation. The last bite of food I'd had was days ago. Almost on cue I could hear the sound of distant gunfire. Getting closer? It didn’t matter. I had to move.

I dropped out of the cockpit and pulled my backpack down from the cab in one single motion. The sun would be down soon and I needed to find cover before dark.

My feet started to hurt immediately and I remembered why I'd stolen the dump truck in the first place. Either way I had to keep moving. The Jackals would certainly have missed their vehicle by now, and even if they were mostly ass-backwards religious nut-jobs, they were also well-known for their creative forms of torture. No turning the other cheek for them, no sir.

My pistol was digging into my hip as I ran so I had to pull it out to keep my pace. It felt good in my hand. The weight of it was seductive and it gave me the illusion of power. For a moment there I really felt like I could make it another day without a fight, and then I heard the approaching sound of the helicopters. I didn't need to look up to know the gleaming hornets were headed straight for me. I decided to drop the backpack and run hard for the treeline.

Those were Government air patrols. I'd run into them before. They swept the countryside looking for people dumb enough to venture outside in the daylight. People like me.

I'd rather face the Jackals than be gunned down in my tracks by fifty-millimeter canons. The tree line was thirty yards away. I could tell without looking that the helicopters were probably a half mile behind. Almost within range to squeeze off a few shots at me. My lungs were on fire as I sprinted for the trees.

Suddenly I felt a hot ripping in my stomach and at first I thought they must have shot me, but looking down I could see my wound had re-opened. Bright red blood was pouring out of the gash as I ran, but I couldn’t stop. I had to reach the treeline.

The sound of the helicopter was impossibly loud now. The blades were chopping the air into chunks and I couldn't hear myself breathe. Any minute now the bullets would come and I would never hear a thing.

Closer now. Were they toying with me? Why else would they wait so long to cut me in half with their guns?

Suddenly the air around me filled with swirling dirt which caked onto my skin and filled my eyes with sand. I had to stop and cover my eyes as the copter hit the ground just twenty yards away. My hand went up to aim the pistol and I realized the helicopter was white, not black. There was a large red cross against the fuselage.

I lowered my weapon and a young woman dropped from the passenger side to jog over to my side.

"My name is Soreena," she said into my ear as the rotor blades wound slowly down. "Congratulations, Sir."

I cocked my head and licked my lips. The smell of her hair was like honeysuckle. Her green eyes were flecked with yellow and her skin was clean. She had recently bathed and was wearing clean clothes and new shoes. I hadn't seen anything like this since before the war which was years ago.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"I'm with the network. You've won, sir. Our viewing audience has selected you as our grand prize winner. How do you feel sir?"

I looked down at her slender hands and realized she was holding a wireless microphone. Over her shoulder I could see a camera man and a lighting engineer. They were wearing new clothes too.

I shot her once in the forehead and as she fell forward I shot the cameraman who was also, apparently, the pilot.

The lighting engineer dropped his parabolic lamp and raised both hands into the air. I couldn't hear what he was saying but I didn't really care.

The pilot’s seat was still warm when I slid into the cockpit. The fuel gauge read full. I wound up the rotors and as I pulled back on the stick and cut into the skyline the sun was setting just behind the hills.

It was good to be alive.

RANDOM ACTS by Keith Giles

RANDOM ACTS by Keith Giles
(A prequel story from "UV:Target")

Claire told everyone who would listen that she saw things. Visions, and premonitions. She said she was clairvoyant. I think I was the only person in our entire school who didn’t need to look up the word in the dictionary to figure out what she was talking about.

Anyway, we got to be friends. I imagined that she had a crush on me, but it was really the other way around. I would’ve done anything for her, but I think she just needed someone to talk to and I was a good listener.

About a year ago, around the Fourth of July, she and I were talking on the phone. She was crying and telling me that three little kids were going to get shot that evening, accidentally. She kept asking me why it is that only little kids and single Mom’s get hit by the stray bullets that drunk assholes fire into the air on Independence Day. “Why don’t the gang-bangers and the rapists get hit by those bullets?” she asked. I didn’t have any good answers.

The next night on the evening news there was the story of three separate stray bullet accidents where little kids got hit in the head and died. One single Mom was hit in the chest and had to be rushed to a hospital but was going to be ok.

That’s when I got the idea about how I could answer Claire’s question.

My Dad had a silver-plated .357 Mangum handgun he kept between the mattress on his side of the bed. I had a wristwatch with this global positioning feature on it. I took a map of the city and worked out a radius that a .357 Magnum slug would possibly hit based on the known speed velocity of the bullet leaving the barrel, and the angle of the trajectory. I also factored in the variant wind speed in the upper atmosphere using a local weather site I found online. After a few tries, I was able to develop a formula where I could, theoretically mind you, hit any target on the map in a three mile radius of my house.

I showed Claire my calculations and told her the next time she got a vision that another child was going to be hurt or shot by a stray bullet, I could put a bullet into the air and strike any target, if she could tell me where the shooter was and when it was going to happen.

At the time she just wrinkled her brow. Her nose crinkled up and she half-smiled at me, but I think mostly she was just fascinated that my Dad owned a handgun.

The next Fourth of July she came over to my house. My Mom and Dad had gone out to a company party and fireworks show and I pretended I needed to study for a test on Monday. As soon as they left Claire came over.

I confess I was pretty nervous about having a girl in my room alone. She had on a skin-tight black tube top that showed off her pale white belly and these tight black jeans. She laid down on my bed and curled up with my pillow because she said she only got the visions when she slept. She fell asleep after a few minutes and I surfed the web a little, but mostly I watched her sleep.

Around 10:30pm she woke up talking strange. Like she was half-asleep and half-awake, but still dreaming about something.

“There’s a little boy on San Juan who’s going to get shot by a stray bullet,” she said.

“Where’s the bullet come from, Claire? Where?” I said.

She never opened her eyes, kind of swayed around the room a little, then said, “His name is Matt and he lives on Baine Street. 1478 Baine Street.”

I got to work on the map. Found Baine Street just about two miles North of my house. Marked it on the map and used the Global Positioning Unit to triangulate the trajectory of the bullet first.

“Hurry,” she said. “He’s getting his gun now!”

I didn’t have time to double-check my calculations but they looked about right. Next I tried to pull up the URL for the weather site but it was taking its time loading up.

“He’s loading it.”

Finally it came up and I had to type in today’s date and my zip code. A pop-up window blocked my typing in mid-stroke and I had to grab the mouse to close it.

“There’s a girl about to be raped,” she said. “On Newport and First.”

“Wait, I can’t do two at the same time,” I said. The website was slow loading the current weather report.

“Matt’s got the gun now. He’s aiming into the sky.”

“Almost done, Claire. Hang on,” I said. My fingers fumbled on the calculator keys.

“There’s a cop in Album Park about to get shot. Hurry.”

I couldn’t do that many at one time. I was still struggling to get the first address and trajectory calculated when suddenly Claire grabbed my Dad’s gun.

The sound of the gunshots felt like someone stabbing my eardrums with icepicks. Car alarms down the street started going off.

I watched her lift the heavy, chrome-plated revolver in her small white hands and randomly fire three shots out the window, turning slightly to place each bullet at a different angle.

The gun dropped to the floor like a rock. Smoke curled out of the barrel like silver ooze. Claire shook her head and broke out of her trance. “What’s that smell?” she asked.

I tried to explain to her what had just happened and then said she needed to go home. Without another word she was out the door and down the stairs to the street.

I quickly put my Dad’s gun back in the closet and tried to clean up any evidence of what we’d been doing.

The next night on the evening news they ran a story about a guy named Mathew Ward who was hit by a stray bullet, right through the skull, just as eyewitnesses say, he was preparing to fire a drunken shot into the sky to celebrate our Nation’s Independence with his friends.

Another story followed about a Cop in Album Park who nearly died when a thug grabbed his gun in a scuffle but was saved when the kid got hit by a random bullet in the arm and dropped the weapon.

The last victim of random gunfire was a boy in an alley on Newport and First who got shot by a stray bullet in the leg just as he was about to date-rape his girlfriend.

Claire and I never talked much after that night. She ended up moving to another school the next semester.

Still, random bullets fall out of the sky in Maverick County every Fourth of July and New Years and they always seem to hit the right kinds of people.

**
Keith Giles

Back In The Saddle?

I've been playing with the possibility of getting back into comic-scripting at some level.

First, there's a contest for writers running currently at an Image-based publisher to create an original super-heroine. Winners will be published in a 3 issue mini-series.

Second, I discovered an indie comics publisher that is soliciting for short comics on sci-fi, spy stories, slice-of-life stories, and pretty much everything else. I suggested my "Devil's Riding Horse" short with Kristian Donaldson might work. We'll see.

So, as 2008 looms ahead, what should I do with the creative and fiction ideas in my head?

The other day Lito and I were talking on the phone and almost accidentally we came up with a great concept for a story about a little African girl who is abducted from her village and sold into slavery here in pre-civil war America. It had me thinking about working it up as a complete story actually. We could weave into the plot about the underground railroad, the quilts which doubled as maps to freedom, etc.

At the same time, I've had to re-think several of my overly-ambitious schemes in light of keeping things simple and focusing on the needs of everyday people around me. I'm continually compelled to direct my energies towards making a difference in the lives of the poor in our community. After that is accomplished and the vision is solidified for that, perhaps a fiction story or script could emerge from the fingertips.

We shall see...

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AMERICAN FLAGG

American Flagg by Howard Chaykin (First Comics)- Trade paperback

I've been reading trades lately like DMZ, The Nightly News and The Immortal Iron Fist, all of which I've enjoyed, but after running across my trade paperback version of Howard Chaykin's classic hard sci-fi series from the 1980's, I have to say I prefer the old to the new.

Chaykin's book is not for children, or for people who are easily offended. There is ultra-violence galore, sexual inneundo out the ying-yang (ahem), and mature language throughout this book, but if you loved the tone of the film "Robocop" or the sardonic wit of Ellis' "Transmetropolitan" or the moral ambiguity of almost everything that's been published since, you'll find plenty to rave about in Chaykin's "American Flagg".

For the uninitiated, the main character is Reuben Flagg, a once popular soft-porn/action star of television's "Mark Thrust: Sexus Ranger" who has been replaced by a holographic version of himself (so the show goes on without him) and has now been drafted into service with the real "Plexus Rangers" military/police force on what is now only loosely recognizable as what you and I remember as Planet Earth.

After the United States Government evacuated the Nation to rule from Mars (only temporarily of course) due to a series of catastrophic disasters, terrorist attacks and biological plagues, the United States are now known as something called "The Plexus". Most mega-cities are now infested with various religious and political militants who battle every night on reality television to the delight of viewers and corporate sponsors who supply the factions with free ammo and weapons.

Corruption, violence and crime are rampant. The Plexus Rangers exist to protect the local government and the remaining aristocracy from becoming collateral damage in the various ongoing conflicts. The criminals and terrorists pay the Rangers to "aim high" in order to maintain the status quo.

As Reuben is thrust (pun intended) into this cesspool of corruption he becomes the one Ranger willing to stand up against the system and go against the grain.

The book begins with the realization that Flagg is the only person able to see the subliminal messages contained in every episode of the top rated television show "Bob Violence", other than a talking cat but that's beside the point. Every night, after each episode, the local Chicago gangs attack each other, and the Rangers, in a frenzy of violence. Flagg makes the connection between the subliminal messages and the daily violence. Going against his superiors wishes he cuts the transmission and the violence ends immediately. Clubs and restaurants see revenues increase exponentially and the gangs themselves are found too drunk and high to fight each other.

Round one goes to Flagg, but whoever is behind these subliminal messages isn't too happy about being pre-empted and this sets up the first story arc.

Chaykin's book is a seminal work. His work on other books like "Dominic Fortune" or "The Shadow" or even "Star Wars" is weak in comparison. For Chaykin, it all comes together in this series. The story, the art, the characters, all combine here in an epic display of artistic convergence. This is the story Chaykin was born to tell, and he tells it very, very well.

Chaykin packs a lot of great detail into every frame of this book. I found myself scanning the posters in the background for political jabs and faux product advertisements, and even the dialog makes reference to the over the top decadence of this future world, providing clues to the mindset of those living in this dystopian America.

"American Flagg" is a fully realized, visionary work of great science fiction. Full of great ideas, sandwiched between intriguing characters and blended with mounds of ultra-violence and sprinkled with sexual overtones, this book is a treasure of artistic genius that even Chaykin himself has yet to duplicate.

"American Flagg"- I salute you.

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