Hey, Army.

Just placed an order for some books, so it's time to celebrate or something. 

Here's a new feature for my LJ called "Hollywood, call me!"

Frank Darabont directing "Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City" as a mixed B&W/color feature film. The movie opens with a trip of Mystery Agents navigating the stark white corridors of the Company to the tune of "Get Around" by the Beach Boys.

Hollywood, call me!

Also...

Roger Zelazny's "The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of his Mouth" done like an episode of the "Deadlest Catch" reality show.

Hollywood, call me!

There is a Paraguayan bakery on the corner where I buy my coffee and breakfast. They have fresh pastries but I eat the day-old stuff that's hanging around; fifty cents for a twisty, sugary thing filled with sticky, orange guava paste. I buy the last six and cram two of them before I even pay, two more as I walk out the door and the last two on the walk back to the apartment where I hole up. The coffee is fair, black and sweetened with whatever I grabbed before I left. A packet of Dominos or some Splenda or Equal or what-have-you. It makes no difference to me. My sense of taste is as dead as the fire that burns in most men's hearts. These days I only see the bottom line. A number that decrements by dollar bills each minute I'm still alive. I figure seven big jobs, twenty little jobs. That's the idea. That's the fuck you money I require.

I'm already a millionaire, on paper. And by "on paper" I mean bearer bonds and stacks of twenties buried in coffee cans, stuffed into couch cushions, hidden under floor boards. Seventy-five thousand cash hidden around the drain of my shower beneath the floor and I'm eating stale food from the corner market. My refrigerator is filthy, uncovered food lies in heaps. My stomach is bulletproof and I never get sick. I don't have visitors, ever. I don't care about hygiene these days. My freezer is a bank vault, my shower is a safety deposit box. My walls are storage lockers, the space beneath the floorboards is my gun rack. Everything hidden away, tucked away, concealed. When your job is to not be seen, it becomes second nature to hide. Everything.

That was before the kid.

Tags: darkpages, fiction

In keeping with tradition, I planned an April Fool's prank this year.

And also in keeping with tradition, it's already happened. 

Creative butter churned from the raw milk of the imagination cow's teat...what?

DEAD LAST: Horror-themed driving game about a fast-paced race from Maine to California. Supernatural weirdness and bloody violence ensue. Think of Duel, Damnation Alley, Vanishing Point and Cannonball Run meets Death Race 2000, The Long Walk and Death Proof. I think I'd make Google Maps a part of the game and/or a big game board of the US. Ticket to Ride but with cars and blood instead of trains and... trains.

VESTERN: My western chanbara vampire game and setting, still percolating in my brain.

RATPACK: After re-reading this game for the first time in several years, I was kinda taken with it. Ah, back when I had dreams... anyway, I'd like to revisit this one someday, but with the caper aspect amped up. Still, I included scenarios? Wow... very unlike me.

CITY: A "real life" RPG about people living in a modern metropolis (ala New York). Slice of life dramedy without action/supernatural elements or weird relationship mechanics. Heavily resource-based in a "two go up, one goes down" kinda way.

DARKPAGES: Continues, thanks to more art coming in from Jon and the final history of superhero comics articles articles from Jason. Introducing a small visual element to the game: a token denoting whether the game's current status is day or night. No mechanical value at all but useful in a game where light and darkness are both real and metaphorical concerns.

 The shop bears an inscription above the doorway:

Deus ex machina. God from the machine.

In this case, la machina... a very expensive, very shiny espresso maker. God, one would assume, would be coffee.

"How long you been awake?" he asks me, hands jitterbugging along the paper on the table.

I brush the question aside and call for another plate of french toast. 

He says he's been awake for four days straight. He sees things in his dreams, so he prefers not to dream anymore. I tell him this isn't healthy. He looks at me as if to say, "Duh."

Me? I feel a bit worn, a bit frayed at times but he's unraveling before my eyes. I can see the red veins around his iris, the tremor in his upper lip, his fingers, his tense body posture. I ask this guy if he's using and he says, "No... no, no drugs. Just the bean."

Two vampires on skates roll in. I ignore them as best I can.

"So, bad dreams. Yeah." 

He orders another demitasse of espresso. Dark, rich. A shot of artificial adrenaline. I dive into my french toast and ponder the inevitable follow-up.

"You're the only one who doesn't?" he asks me and I say yes around a mouthful of lost bread, butter and faux-maple syrup. The kind that comes in little plastic pods with the peel-off lid and the diabetes-inducing contents.

"Millar's on the East Coast, so's the Roach, I hear. I don't talk to either of them much, though I know they've tangled in this recent past. The others? No idea where they are. But yeah, I'm the one who got the permanent No-Doze."

He looks forlorn. I toss him my ace card, to keep him interested. "Of course, there's rumors of a second round of test subjects."

He looks up from his coffee, thick with Splenda.

"Mister Rote. I'd... I'm really in a bad way here. If you can just give me a name, a lead... anything!"

I write down a phone number on corner of the paper tablecloth and tear it off. 

"You call this guy. You ask him about the Dark." I hand it to him.

"The dark?"

I pull the paper away, catch his eyes and fix them with my own. "Capital D. Man means business. Don't go during the nighttime."

The guy takes the paper and stuffs it into a wallet full of newspaper clippings and business cards and receipts but not much else.

"What happens at night?" 

I shake my head, hoping he'd have at least enough to cover the tip. "That's when he sleeps."

At least he paid in advance, I think to myself.

The vampires were giggling at something on their cell phones when I left. Something funny. Funny to vampires.

Tags: darkpages, fiction

 I see the sun setting through the slats of the blinds. Orange turning to red, the light filtering in as the sun sinks below the horizon. There's a man wearing surgical scrubs looming above me. He's about to do something very painful to me, but only at my request.

"...because of your sensitivity to the anesthetic, Mister Rote."

"Of course," I say. You can't put a man who never sleeps to sleep.

He continues: "This needle will numb the pain somewhat. But I cannot guarantee that you won't feel anything. And of course -- " the syringe is lifted from a stainless steel tray beside me "-- you will remain aware."

I tell the doctor that needles don't bother me. Pain just a bit more, but not too much. A man in my business deals with pain everyday. Other people's pain. My own. Sometimes, I'm the man who inflicts both.

There are several pieces of broken glass embedded in my back and shoulder. A small calibre bullet in my ass. A rusted spike of metal impaling me just below the collarbone from when I fell from the window. 

I'm lying on my side, a paper gown protecting my dignity. As it is, I just want this stuff out of my body. The sooner, the better. I'm still on the clock, on the job. This is cutting into my deadline.

The doctor works as fast as he can and I grind my teeth and try to deal with the situation. Performing mental tricks to take my mind of the procedure. Always curious to learn a new trick, I watch him pick up the scalpel and open me up to better grab the lead slug. My mind falls into a narrow black pit as I watch, a casual observer of an interesting medical drama. My eyes are not my own. My body isn't either. The man laying at a thirty degree angle is the subject. While the doctor reaches in with some forceps and works his magic, the subject turns ghost-white. Erol imagines a lesser man would be screaming right now, but I wouldn't know. That is not me.

When my mind returns from the well, the doctor is packing the wound and taping it closed. He'll remove the glass next, a much easier task. The rusty spike is a blurry reminder in my peripheral vision of things to come. 

"Those may scar…" he says to nobody in particular. More to himself, I think. He's a good doctor. Efficient. He turns his attention to the jagged sliver of metal protruding from my upper torso and then I hear myself scream and then pass out.

For one who doesn't sleep, this is a strange thing. But then again, I'm not awake to consider it. When I emerge from the black hole of unconsciousness the doctor is tidying up in the washroom. Gauze and tape cover large patches of my skin and it every few seconds, the wounds throb and burn, causing my eyes to water and my mouth to go dry. I feel the urge to vomit, I imagine the result of the medication. I lie in bed. I can't sleep.

The next day I feel better. It's been a day since I've eaten food and I need to do something about that. The doc has a small refrigerator in his office and I grab a yogurt and make some coffee. The stuff doesn't wake me up but I like the warmth and the taste. I flip through a stack of takeout menus while the coffee drips down into a promotional mug advertising some pharmaceutical wonder. I plan my meals in advance, four a day to keep my energy up, with snacks in between. With my metabolism and a strenuous workout regimen  I can do this. Food is one of the few joys I have in my life but it comes in two varieties: fuel and entertainment. Right now, I need to feed the Erol machine. I make an order and leave the money on a plate outside the doc's front door. A note says to ring the bell and leave the pie.

I can't sleep through pain, through sickness. I can't escape boredom by closing my eyes and drifting off into a self-induced coma. Plane rides are a nightmare, especially long jumps on cross-country or international flights. I sit and I read. Earplugs in, I avoid eye contact and conversation. I feel the thrum of the engine, the whine of air conditioners and babies suffering from the cabin pressure. I stay at the doc's, eating pizza and chinese food and pad thai and spicy curries and burritos and eventually I'm well enough to be where I am right now. Crying babies. Whining engines. No eye contact. No conversations.

The woman on the plan bends down and asks me if I'd like a beverage. I can read her lips but her chipper, cheery voice is on mute. I hear myself say "water" and she hands me a tiny plastic bottle and a larger cup of ice and a napkin. Five hours until I reach California. There's a tiny television screen in front of me. Looping travel shows, sitcoms, re-enactments of homicides, hockey and basketball. 

Five more hours of this. I forgot to bring a book.

Tags: darkpages

In a voice so low it's inaudible, even with the microphone in front of his face, he whispers, "I cannot do this."

The reporters snap photos and shove more mikes in front of his face but this time he raises his head and says, in a clear strong voice:

"I can't do this any more." The crowd, once screaming with questions, falls silent. The odd flash and pop of a bulb going off.

"You people... you people are like infants. Crying and sucking and waiting to be cleaned up. You're fucking leeches. You are parasites."

He raises a hand and everyone, everyone steps back. The crowd parts and he walks to the waiting car.

"You're all going to die. You're going to die and I'm not going to be there to save you. None of us are. And even if we could save you, would we? Why would we? Because of our innate goodness? Because of your innate worth. Hell, most of you aren't worth saving. You're scum at best. Floating atop the skin of the world, just existing and giving nothing back. We're the worthy ones. We, the ones with the power and the courage to use it. You're just flies riding our backs, feeding on shit."

The crowd of journalists and fans and police and cameramen close in around the figure as he disappears inside the black sedan.

The window cracks open, enough to see the brim of his hat and the gray mask covering his eyes.

"You deserve everything that comes to you. But you don't deserve us."

The books are in. The buttons are in.

If you pre-ordered, expect your books to go out this week/early next week!

If you haven't, you still can (all pre-orders come with a "Lacuna Device" button).

Going to a party at the end of the month with a superhero theme. Problem is, aside from my own creations, I don't have any actual superheroish clothing.

Right now I'm leaning toward Bizarro Clark Kent (Kent Clark?) or Animal Man.

BCK because I have a suit and Bizarro t-shirt to wear underneath a button-down shirt. Messy hair + white make up + backward talk = win.

I'd like to do Animal Man...even have veggie combat boots. But I don't want to announce my religious views vis a vis bright orange leotard. I have goggles and can probably figure out a way to do his mask. Blue jacket? Kinda... the orange outfit with the blue "A" is the trick. Orange coveralls could work but blah. I might just get a bright orange shirt and maybe fabric paint the blue A. I'd also need some blue faux leather gloves.

Then there's always some clad in black vigilante type of my own design. I could do Rorschach (timely!) but the coat is too long and I don't have the right colors. Possibly be a duplicate at the party too. Punisher? Nah, I'm too lanky.

Hmmm...

10 days to do it...