Update on Prey for Vengeance and the reason for writing.

It's been a while. 

I've been easing back into the working world and found that writing was taking a back seat to the comfortable nature of being gainfully employed.  This is my long march back.  I noticed this past week that while at work I was beginning to feel a little less than satisfied.  I couldn't help but ask why.  I had only had the job for about a month and things were going pretty smoothly.  The job itself was familiar and something I had been doing off and on for the better part of my life.  The answer was simply that I wasn't writing and letting my creative juices flow.  I had to realize that I opened a Pandora's box and there was no shutting it.  Writing is an outlet for me for reasons I will describe later in this post.  The important thing to note here is that I am recommitted despite not realizing that I had waned.

Why did I start writing?:

I suppose I have been for quite a while but not in a way that I wanted to make permanent.  At age 14 I received a Toshiba laptop for school.  Laptops in those days were around four grand and hideously expensive and bulky affairs by today's standards.  The reasoning behind this benevolent gift was mainly due to my inability to read my own writing.  This wasn't wholly the result of bad penmanship I might add.

It all happened at age 6.  I woke up at around three in the morning.  This memory is so strong that I still remember it in complete detail for about half an hour.  No other memory survives in more than a split second chunk or so.  I woke up and thought I saw a ghost in my room.  There was a flashing blue ball traveling around the room at a snail's pace and I was tracking it as best I could but I couldn't quite see it dead on.  At first I thought it was playing a weird trick on me.  As a young lad I had been credited with a wild imagination that sported the fanciful and terrifying.  I swore up and down that I had felt a snake coiled under my pillow.  To this day I remember the scaley sensation and the immediate terror that followed.  Even then I stayed perfectly still and took stock of my options.  I slowly moved my arms out from underneath the pillow and ran screaming to my parents.  The snake apparently wasn't there and this marked my first lucid dream experience.
But back to the ghost.  After minutes had trickled by and I had tracked this ball of flickering light all over the room I decided to experiment with seeing if it would follow in another room.  Indeed the ball actually managed to stay ahead of me and just to one side of my pointed gaze.  I wandered into the living room and took stock of the time.  This was more to gauge the relative anger I would receive if I were to wake up my parents.  The wooden clock spelled out Jesus in the shape of a downward facing dove and gave the reassuring tick tock that grants children the reassurance that civilization is still at this very moment functioning.  The  ghost however had transposed itself on the clock.  I composed a battery of tests which usually involved making unpredictable movements and sitting in areas of the living room which were only inviting to a child.  At some point I went to bed.  The next morning the ghost was still there and has become my constant companion ever since.

After some concerns from my first grade teacher and my inability to see the black board I was sent for a barrage of tests and it was finally decided that I had Star Gardts disease.  A juvenile form of macular degeneration that is still non-correctable.  I have no central vision.  I basically look out of the corner of my eye at everything.  This has influenced my life in countless ways.  For example, at age eleven I came to the realization that the American dream no longer applied to me.  The house in the suburbs and the white picket fence wasn't ever going to apply to the likes of me.  I would never be able to drive.  Having a child would be a risk.  My visual impairment is passed on genetically and even with testing could be made elusive.  To have a child would mean that there would probably be a 25% chance of them having the same problems as I had growing up and I don't think I can bear that weight of responsibility.  If a child of mine did happen to win the devil's lottery and later came to hate me for it, he or she would be completely justified and just at the possibility of this happening makes me break out in a sweat.

Spending your life looking out of the corner of your eye has some interesting side effects.  You do actually find most things suspicious as the metaphor implies.  I find myself encouraged by Norman Rockwell real life settings of people gathering for company and basking in the mutual love and respect for it's own sake.  The family with 2.2 kids and a two car garage is oddly settling.  Everything else I see as an attempt to destroy the fabric of society and make things more difficult for me and therefore I despise it.

When I was handed my first laptop I used it as intended to take notes with my shiny new copy of DOS based Word Perfect v1.3.  It didn't take me long to start banging out all the hate and rage I felt as being an outsider.  Some people spend most of their lives cultivating a sense of otherness that allows them to stand out in a crowd.  I have spent the majority of my life hating my lack of choice for that same feature.

On a particularly brutal day when my parents and I weren't getting along in an age my sister's refered to as "the dark years" I was banging on my computer.  My father came into my room to tell me that everything I knew was wrong and that my mother was the penultimate sage and vessel of all wisdom and good sense and I would be a fool to disregard her words.  Before his gruff commanding presence could be felt however he started reading what I was writing over my shoulder.  In a stubborn denial of his presence I kept writing exactly the way I would if he weren't there.  My father didn't comment on what I wrote he just read silently over my shoulder while I braced for impact.  The words I was writing weren't particularly charitable or even fair minded.  It did however ring true as the first time I could speak without being interrupted in that house in my entire life.  He left the room before I had finished my diatribe of childish immature rage without saying a word.  The next altercation with my parents was almost civilized.  It was then that the power of the written word made its impression on me.  It didn't stop the arguments.  The worst ones were to come, but that nugget got buried away for a later date.

I had a creativity problem during those years.  I thought my outlet would be music.  I taught myself how to play the trombone for a few months and felt I was getting the hang of it.  Then my over stimulated hormones decided to remind me that playing a trombone looked a lot like a training device for providing a high end blowjob.  My interest faded quickly.  Undeterred I turned my attention to the trumpet.  This was an instrument that could get you in with the ladies.  Fingering ability and firm muscular mouth control and the ability of belting out a jazz tune was my adolescent view of a good sexual training regimen.  That's when my ghostly companion came in to rain on my parade.  In order to play music I had to increase the size of the music sheets so I could read it.  These bloated notes didn't fit well on a music stand and had a tendency to fall off especially when I had to run a page.  Therefore I had to memorize the pieces I was playing and only use the sheet music as a rough guide for when I got lost.  I saw no future here even after a couple years playing.  My only solace being that I learned to play "Ode to Joy" and exerts from the "Star Wars" soundtrack.

From there the years got pretty bleak.  I tried to develop some sort of identity as a nerd.  I played nerdy games and submerged myself into technology.  I thought to pursue a career in such fields and if I stuck to tech support I could probably hack it, no pun intended.  However, I have an inquisitive mind and if I learn a thing I wanted to know how it all works and hardware was something that I was just incapable of doing.  I have built my own computer before.  An experienced computer builder can throw together a personal computer in about five minutes after prepping all the little pieces in a neat organized fashion. I on the other hand can spend a couple hours putting in just the CPU and possibly mangling the pins in the process because those little fittings and ports are just too much for me to overcome by touch alone.  Coding software would be a nightmare.  I tend to read by the common speed reading practices.  This isn't for a faster reading experience but because I don't have the visual acuity to see each individual letter.  That means software is out and my only recourse is troubleshooting.  I'm pretty good at this but don't want to do it for a living considering pointing out a problem but not necessarily being able to fix it yourself without help is maddening. 

So after many trials and tribulations I returned to writing.  I can't imagine how many story ideas I have conceived and discarded over the years.  I kept info dumping in the first chapter, got frustrated, and scrapped the whole thing.  The only way I finished "Prey for Vengeance" was because I convinced myself that my friend Steve was counting on me to finish it.  He had characters he wanted to write into a comic but couldn't come up with a suitable story idea.  We started by spit balling ideas around and it became evident that I already had a story outlined in my head and in exasperation Steve more or less dared me to write the story myself and he would adapt it into a web comic.  The first chapter or in this case prologue of the book contained the kind of info dump exposition that is the textbook standard of what not to do.  So I took the prologue and spent about six months turning just it into a story giving the background of the story I wanted to tell.  Luckily it worked.  My first novel was literally a first chapter and I still had a large story I wanted to tell with even more characters.  I accidentally found myself an author of a series.  The epic struggle of longing to find a creative outlet for my frustration with my visual impairment and the artistic mind that my high school band teacher pulled my mother aside to point out had finally found a medium in which to swim through to the light.  I doubt I could ever match the novels that I typically read and in some cases I don't really want to.  I have found epic fantasy and science fiction and even thrillers have gotten a little crazy and too wide in scope.  I'd like to tell the tales of people who might live in an over the top world but are just the background in most other author's tales.  The man who'd like to start a family but doesn't have the means.  In this current economic client I think it's relevant. Maybe it doesn't suit the escapist sensibilities of readers these days but it just might provoke something special like, I don't know, tolerance for your fellow man.

My job has sort of helped me gained prospective on this point.  I work in retail in a produce department.  It's not exactly glamorous, but  there is no other profession that allows for voyeurism into the soul of the populous.  You see the entire scope of human behavior.  It's the one place that allows me to truly take stock of the world.  I never understood just how thin civilizations thread dangled over anarchy until we ran out of cucumbers.  The look of terror as a result of something rather meaningless is very telling and a gold mine for me as a writer.

I'm sure I could wax philosophical for days on the subject but I have some work to do on chapter 6 and 7 of Prey book 2.  L.K. Campbell finished formatting my first novel "Prey for Vengeance" for Smashwords and it is now up on the site and pending the Meatgrinder.  Her professionalism is unmatched and courtesy welcome.  I asked for a projected date of completion and it was delivered on that date without delay.  Her prices were more than fair and the money well spent.  Her attention to detail was emasculate.  She has earned my business whenever I can scrounge something up for her.  If you are a writer banging your head up against the wall when submitting to Smashwords.com you can save yourself a lot of research and frustration. and I assure you the expense is laughably cheap compared to the alternative.

The World Conspires Against ME!

I have to admit that I am feeling a bit cranky as I write this..

I started a part time job to keep me fed while I do my writing and suddenly there has been many matters requiring my attention in the past two weeks.  These weren't unwelcome distraction but they did make my writing suffer quite a bit.

First, a friend of mine I hadn't seen in a decade happened to be coming through Omaha on his way to Chicago.  It was great to see him and it was great introducing him to my favorite pig out spots around town and witnessing his acceptance into Wheaten University.  As we said out reluctant goodbye's I suffered a resurgence of a cold I had been fighting the previous week.  I had thought I was on the mend but the evening before my friend's departure I started feeling pain in my ear.  Five hours of agony later the drum finally gave and my ear has been ringing ever since.

With no rest for the wicked I had to forge ahead to the next day as I attended a all day bachelor party for a friend that culminated in final alterations for our tuxedos for the wedding.  The bachelor party itself was pretty tame consisting mainly of bowling and getting all you can eat hot wings.  The bowling was fun specifically because I scored a 174 complete with two turkeys.  It's always fun to rub it in when a legally blind man wipes the floor with the able bodied.  The hot wings were great and helped better than Dayquil at clearing my sinuses.
Still draining like a siv I continued on with the wedding and work the next day.  We had family in for the wedding so there wasn't much chance to recuperate from the cold.  I'm still hacking up a lung and sticking cotton balls in my ear and blowing my nose every few minutes.  Sleep has been a quarry that has proved elusive and despite all the good memories I am generating, I think my long term memory of the event will be better than the short.  Ringing ears, tissues defacement, and projectile coughing for distance is sort of clouding the otherwise smile inducing activities.

Despite all that I managed to give a decent toast at the reception and I think the Catholic church I performed my groom's man duties won't require too much consecration.

Overall great times with the only the slight germ infestation to detract.  The only concern is that I have lots of writing self appointed homework to do and I am still battling to keep up with email and podcast stuff.  So if you are waiting with bated breath to see what's coming out next I apologize.

Missions:
-Work on a few short stories I started on.
-Prep "Prey for Vengeance" for Smashwords meatgrinder.
-Whine unceasingly at Ed and Steve about Prey book 2's cover and edit.
-Work on side project "Digital Divine Intervention" and figure out how to resolve conclusion.
-Call "Ro-Row" and get some details about Moscow living habits and every day sundries.

That's what is going on with me.  /sniffle... /sneeze ... /cough/cough/cough
 

The Ascent From the Valley of Misery

Smashwords Style Guide + Me = Frustration.
(L. K. Campbell + ME) + Smashwords Meatgrinder = Success

Okay so what do these equations have to do with my writing?  Well I have spent many moons bashing my head up against the wall with the Smashwords System.  I read the Style Guide which is very thorough and indeed gives all the information that I needed.  The problem I had was picking out the few things I needed to get my formatting straight.  The Style Guide is good at a lot of things.  Putting up a condensed version of what is required with a quick reference isn't one of them.  Paging through content isn't quick and simple.  I probably should have looked more thoroughly for a quick tip wiki or something similar but I thought I had it done correctly.  I had thought it done correctly twice before I gave up.

In the wake of my evident failure I requested for a list of freelance formatters from Smashwords.com.  The one I picked was L.K. Campbell (http://design.lkcampbell.com/).  I sent her a quck email for confirmation of price and where I might send a payment.  I received a reply in less than half an hour with the work already done with no charge and an explanation where I failed.  I had missed the paragraph spacing and since my story was really short and it wasn't too hard to fix she cut me a break.  Ms. Campbell has earned my future business with quick response and professional approach and more importantly smoothing out the bruise on my ego.  I encourage anyone who is having difficulties formatting their ebooks to visit her site.

Thank you so much for your help Ms. Campbell and when I am ready to format my future works you will be the first I email!

http://design.lkcampbell.com/

Blind functionality and Smashwords

So I finally got all the bells and whistles worked out on my phone.  I have a old blue tooth headset that actually worked with my shiny new phone and the voice dialing actually works quite well.  I found an app on the Google Play website called Zoom Messenger that allows me text to speech along with the ability to zoom the text to as a high a font size as I like.  I inadvertently saw ran across an app that would allow you to work your phone like a magnifying glass which I could find infinitely useful for reading menus and such.  The problem I ran into was that none of them worked for my phone.  Luckily I ran across the Swiss Army Knife app which had all kinds of goodies that included a very functional magnifying glass.  The moral of the story is that you can make just about any Android app blind friendly if your bloodyminded enough to doggedly pursue it.

So after finding out that Kindle wouldn't publish my short story for free I went slightly insane with rage.  I brushed up on my Google-fu trying to find a way to make it free and I came up with Smashwords.com.  I have "My Turn-ons Include Napalm" on there now and am awaiting approval for premium publishing which will atuomatically throw me out on a bunch of marketplaces like Apple and Barnes and Noble.  Hopefully they won't find too many mistakes that require weeks of editing and other nonsense.  I read the book on publishing on Smashwords (literally) and hopefully I have things well in hand.

Once my short story is published on all these other sites I will then be able to tell Amazon about the price difference and then hope and pray they see fit to price match.  This has been my burden over the past couple weeks and hopefully it doesn't turn into a epic tale.

I'm still waiting for Ed to send me back some notes on Chapter 6 of Prey book 2.  I'm working on another project in the mean time.  Ed gets a little distracted by shiny objects from time to time (Mass Effect 3) and it's not like I've actually paid him for his work, so I really don't have a good reason to do much whining.  I still have plenty of work to do with marketing and working on first person narative style for some upcoming projects.

If you have recently read "My Turn-ons Include Napalm" or "Prey for Vengeance" please feel free to send me some feedback or leave me a review on Amazon.  I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.

New Cover for "My Turn-ons Include Naplam"

Well I ran into an issue.

I needed a cover for my short story but I didn't want anything too terribly involved and I was afraid that my normal cover artist Steve Griffing might find it demeaning.  So I turned to my long time pal Phillip Johnston to load up his graphic artist skills to give me a simple but effective cover.  After an hour on Skype and plenty of consultation Phillip really made the image pop.  I can't thank him enough for this and it has the added bonus of not dragging Steve off the cover for the second book.  Steve has been working diligently on the second cover and I am excited to see the final product.  Probably the biggest issue is that I still have yet to come up with a decent title for the second book.  The second novel's cover is quite a bit more elaborate than the first so I hope everyone likes it as much as I do.

I've been killing myself on another project involving the Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming Industry that has been a lot of fun and I have the added bonus of being able to bend the ear of RW Harper when I have questions.  He's answered my questions with ruthless efficiency and the project so far has gone quite well.  I'm planning to release them as a series of shorts to be released as an anthology, but free online.  I'm using the exercise to  hone my skills in the first person narrative.  Hopefully I'll have more stuff to share with you guys soon.  Until then let me know what you think of my short story and if you were able to grab my book for free, please give me some feedback and tell me if you liked the book.

My Turn-ons Include NapalmA Prey for Vengeance Story

A Prey for Vengeance Story

by Chris Dodson

 

Reader’s Note

This short story is a standalone but takes place shortly after the “Prey for Vengeance” novel.  The story infers back to the novel but not in any significant way that detracts from this story.  This short is also a bridge to the next book which is still forthcoming.

 

Nina

Someone threw up on my combat boots but it still couldn’t tear me away from the bodies laid out and putrefying in the Brazilian sun.  The youngest girl still had the pink ribbon in her hair I had tied on yesterday afternoon.  It was the only tangible evidence of who I was looking at.  Cheetoh came to my side silently.  His breath was rasping from the smoke near the incinerator, the smell of blood and old sweat mixing with the char. 

“How about it, Sorrow or revenge.” I said quietly so that the others jostling me wouldn’t hear.  Cheetoh alone had the choice I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.

“Leave the women and children out of it.”  He replied staring at the girl who begged him for marriage.  Her arms were too disfigured to allow her hands to properly rest on her chest.

“Gather all who are willing to fight.  I’ll get the local Tanakas here for support.”” I said softly and turned to go.  Cheetoh grabbed my arm.  I stopped waiting for his words but he only gave me a gentle squeeze that let me feel his gratitude.  The wailing started when the women were allowed forward.

Fritz

Code named “The Leprechaun” otherwise known as the Leper was droning on about the project I had authorized but was now beginning to regret.  I fought to keep my eyes from glassing over or rolling as he started showing the first signs of passion.  It was always the same, he would come in and rattle off his numbers in his status reports and then start in on what he wanted to do going forward.  That’s when the cocoon shattered and the psycho nerd butterfly emerged and he didn’t stop flapping until I squashed him.  I smacked the desk and he cut off and stared apprehensively.

“The game is up right?”

“Yes sir,” he said blinking rapidly.  I really hoped he didn’t start crying this time.

“Is it functional for the money laundry scam?”

“Yes sir.”

“So why are you going on about it.  You did as instructed and you’ll get your share.  Why are you still talking about added content to the online game?”  He slid a one page report across to me.  It had a long column of numbers on it and it was the beginnings of a profit/loss statement.  The final tallies were missing and I looked at him inquiringly.  I must have had a severe expression because he flinched and actually brought his hands up as if I would strike him.  He gave me a sheepish turning over gesture.  I flipped the page and glanced down and then bent over the paper in shock.

The stupid multiplayer online game in one month had exceeded the projections for the money laundering for the entire year.  I looked up at the Leper with a big smile.  I almost declared him clean for the public on the spot but then I would have to explain and this was no time to make fun of my little genius that might turn me almost legitimate. 

“You can use forty percent of the profits for redevelopment.  The rest will be spread around in profit sharing for the team working on it.  Bring in as many as you need that aren’t already busy.”

“How much is your cut sir?” The Leper asked dejectedly.  He probably wanted all the profits for generating new content.

“The same as everyone else.  I want it standard across the board.”  The Leper looked up in surprise at that.  “Of course the money laundering part of it won’t change.”  I said hurriedly.  It didn’t seem to affect him.  My scramble phone rang and I looked at it nervously.  Nothing good ever came from that phone and I didn’t want to ruin my good mood.

“I have to take this.  Thanks for your hard work.”  I said in dismissal.  The Leper gathered his stuff and fled.  He probably thought that his evil cousin might change his mind if he had a chance to reconsider.  I dug the phone out of the locked drawer and opened it and only dimly registered that the number was unfamiliar.

“Guten Tag”

“It’s ne,” Nina said.  I nearly dropped the phone.  I hadn’t seen her since the last day of school and wasn’t even sure if she was alive.  Relief flooded through me and muscles I didn’t know I had started to relax.  Part of the evil cousin mystique banded about was in large part due to my irritation that I didn’t know what happened to Nina that day.

“Why the hell did you wait so long to call me?” I shouted before I remembered who I was talking to.  There was a long silence on the other end.  I opened my mouth ready to apologize.

“I was busy.  The guys that gave me a lift from school have some family problems.  I need a favor to help resolve the issue.”

“Sure, what do you need?”  I asked and silently swelled that she actually called me for help.  Nina wasn’t the kind of girl that liked relying on anyone for anything.

“Pretty standard stuff really, I need assault rifles, grenades, mortars if you can get some, and plenty of napalm.  It doesn’t have to be the good stuff just make sure the delivery system is idiot proof as you can manage.  Oh yeah and some high grade sniper rifles would be great and make sure all the guns have fire suppression.”

“I’d have thought you wouldn’t get involved in another family feud.  You’re already elbow deep in that sort of trouble.”  I said trying to lighten the mood.  Her brooding tone was starting to freak me out and the hardware wasn’t something you took to a family picnic.

“Not that kind of issue.  He is out of family members and that’s the issue.  Check your email.”  As if on cue my computer bleeped at me and I opened the email.  There was no subject and no body but there was a picture.  I only glanced at it so I wouldn’t spend the next minute or so rediscovering what I had for lunch.

“Where do you want the stuff and when?”  It was all I could manage.

“You’ll get another email with details tomorrow along with payment.”

“I can bankroll you if you need.  How about mercs?  I can send you some guys.”  Nina’s cavalier attitude did a number on a boy’s machismo. 

“Mercenaries would bring down CIA heat, and I don’t want to burn this place as a refuge.”  She said neatly without mentioning that the Smith’s would burn her haven to the ground to find her.  I knew for a fact that several of the aggressive family were given high clearance in the CIA.

“Watch yourself Fritz.  It was easy to get this number and your email.” She said and the phone went dead.  I leaned back in my chair and struggled not to trace the call.  Nina would have taken care of that but the desire to have a solid point of contact was strong.  I grabbed my desk phone to call in the only two family members I trusted to give them the good news.

Nina

The virgin jungle was cleared in a matter of days and the men and women were already being trained by the Tanakas.  I would have left the villagers out of it all together but it seemed unfair.  It was their own country after all and I couldn’t deny them their revenge.  Not for the first time I marveled at how quick and efficient the Tanaka members were.  Even exiled to Brazil they had kept up their traditions and still served me as well as their ancestors served mine.

My uncle Shiro was supposed to have called by now and he was behaving rather squirrelly on the phone last we chatted.    I knew he was up to something to safeguard me in the upcoming attack but I couldn’t imagine what it was.  The main Tanaka force in Japan would stick out like a polar bear in the Sahara.   I didn’t have time to worry about it but I hoped he wouldn’t do something stupid like use Fritz to help me in a blind email.  I would just have to stay in constant contact with him to make sure.  The jungle suddenly felt a little warmer and I fought down the butterflies in my stomach.  I should have eaten more at lunch.  Guerilla work always required more energy.

Cheetoh jogged by with a newly formed squad and I fought down the urge to tell him to cut off those orange dreadlocks again.  Of course if he did I wouldn’t be sure what to call him anymore and I had forgotten his real name.  An image of Fritz with orange hair came unbidden into my mind and I fought to keep the severe expression on my face.  A young woman who had been staring at me in adoration screwed up her face in concern.  I glared at her until she scurried off with food and water for the troops.

Fritz

My office door slammed open and my hand slid under my desk to the pistol I had there and brought it up.  Grace advanced on me and I angled the gun to one side in relief.  Grace was one of few I wouldn’t shoot on sight if they entered my office that way.  Grace reached over the desk and pulled me out of my chair and she casually disarmed me in my shock.

“Why did you send Hans to Central America with two teams of mercenaries and enough firepower to attract the attention of every sovereign nation with an itch to hit the big red button?”  I squirmed in her grip but gave up and did my best to look innocent.  I really was, but I wasn’t used to it.

“The mercenaries were supposed to be in reserve for Nina.  I told Hans about it but I didn’t give him orders to do anything with them.”  Grace slapped her hand down on the table and released me and marched around the desk.  She was casually carrying my gun in her hand and all my concentration was focused on not getting shot with my own gun.  Grace started banging on my computer and I had enough time to wonder if there was a backup keyboard and mouse in the office before she pointed at the screen imperiously.  Confused I peered at the screen while trying to keep an eye on Grace’s gun hand.  Sure enough there was my authorization for Hans to use the forces I had allocated on standby.

“I didn’t do it.  You know Hans has my clearance to expedite stuff.  You do too come to think of it.  He’s acting on his own initiative and I want to know why.”  Grace relaxed and her face took on a worried expression.

“I tried calling him but he’s not answering either phone.”  I nodded and was going to have a long hard talk with Grace and Hans about professionalism.  I didn’t mind that they started dating but if it was going to get me shot every time things got sticky I would have to reconsider my position.

“I’ll contact him and let you know what I find out.”

“The hell you will,” She said in challenge.  I sighed and started going through the complicated coded system me and Hans communicated in.   Several text messages later Hans rang my phone.

“Your girlfriend nearly shot me because of you.”  I said without preamble.  A snort of laughter was my reply.  “Tell me what I want to know before I have to label my own brother as a rogue.”

“Nina’s uncle contacted me through a blind.  He must have hacked your email and pulled my contact info.  I’m going to run interference for Nina during her operation.  When I am done, nobody will care what she is up to.”  I thought about this for a minute but Grace had veins pulsing dangerously.

“What if you get caught in the open?”  I asked pointedly.

“I’ll be miles away.  You know I don’t like the front lines.  I just like to be close enough to see the carnage.”  I looked at Grace and shrugged.  I had the phone on speaker but she snatched it out of my hand anyways.

“If you endanger yourself or us I will personally kill you.”  She snapped into the phone.

“I love you too honey.  Have an apple pie waiting for me when I get back.”  Grace broke the connection.  Hans was certainly going to pay for that little comment.  I suspected he knew it but he was probably hoping that if he did get killed it would dull the pain a little which had me worried.  Grace stomped out of the office without looking back.  I wondered who was going to be my go between now with the rest of the family.  I sighed and started towards the door preparing in my mind how I was going to deal with The Leper when I got to his cubicle.

Nina

There was something crawling up my inner-thigh and it really tickled.  I sighted down the barrel of my shiny new AX50 sniper rifle.  This wasn’t easy while gripping the tree branch with my legs and resting the barrel on another branch.  The house set a quarter mile from the fence still had the lights on and my target was just sitting down at his desk in the study.  I checked the wind one last time and gave my scope an extra click.  I fired and was rewarded with a clean hit.  It wasn’t in the head like I wanted but shooting a fifty caliber bullet through someone’s neck is just as fatal.  I hopped out of the tree and dug in my pants for the offending critter and crushed the life out of it.  That was my second target of the night and the security wasn’t too bad.  I had about half an hour at least before they would find my firing position.  I jogged down the animal track and to the stream where my boat was waiting.

Fritz didn’t like my tactics of picking off the small fries first but he liked only messing with the people at the top.  When it came to drugs there was always someone ready to take over.  The only way to make sure it stopped was to completely eradicate the supply and everyone involved in distribution or you accomplished nothing.

When I finally arrived back at camp Cheetoh came up at a dead run.  He bent over panting as I collected my gear and stared down at him expectantly.

“All the big guys have sent their families out of the country and all the shot callers are gathered at the main house to figure out what to do.”  He had a broad grin on his face and a little wonder that my plan came off so well.

“How are the men?”

“They won’t shoot each other.”

“Good enough, tell them to be ready.  Tomorrow night we go and get your lives back.”

I went to my hut and took a bath and washed the jungle off of me and only then did I sit and check my phone.  I called Shiro first.

“I thought you didn’t like my alliance with the Germans.” 

“They were useful.” Shiro said without a trace of concern.

“You disapproved of me dating one readily enough.” 

“Business is one thing…”

“Don’t give me that crap.  If they are good enough to die for me, they are good enough to date me.  If you deal with my contacts one more time without my authorization that’s it.  I will cut ties.  I’m not a little girl anymore and I think the way the school went down you would appreciate that.”  I hung up before I said something worse.  I didn’t even really like Hans until now.  I thought he wasn’t much more than a pain in the ass and I told Grace she should tell him to take a hike more than once.  If he was willing to risk himself in this way though, maybe Grace was on to something.  Fritz believed in him but Hans made me nervous and this operation didn’t shake that feeling.

I didn’t reply to Fritz’s email.  I didn’t trust myself to.  I felt ashamed that his brother was risking his life for one of my obligations.  I was paying one debt just to accrue another.  The vicious cycle felt like a stain I couldn’t wash away.  I went back to the bathroom for another bath.  I wasn’t sure if it was just jungle that was making me feel unclean.

Fritz

I was in my newly finished war room watching my brother giving CNN news anchors fits.  The UN was going into special session and the President of the US was declaiming the actions of my brother while parental and religious activists were proclaiming the second coming of Christ.  Video streaming sites were trying hell for leather to take down Hans’ homemade documentaries of the wanton destruction.  Poppies and coca plants were burning by the thousands and paramilitary troops from the CIA’s bucket list were being slaughtered in dirty inhumane ways that the world powers found distasteful for their citizens to consume. 

The true political cannon ball to the crotch was the two CIA agents killed defending the illegal plants.  It was broadcast across the world before the NSA could scream national security.  As much as I hate my brother’s methods he was truly a visionary when it came to misbehaving.  The people were cheering him on and the establishment was creating new adjectives and nouns to describe their utter contempt. 

Grace joined me and decided her namesake was inconvenient for the day and alternated between sobs and sacrificing my high dollar electronics to the God of Google in hopes to spare my brother’s life.  I tried to keep her fed with small cheap devices that were easily replaced so I wouldn’t lose the news feeds I needed.  The bank of televisions and computer monitors had so far escaped her wrath but I was running out of remote controls and pre pay phones.  My only solace was the disturbing amount of cash dumped into my account presumably by Nina’s uncle.  If it cost me my brother though, our alliance was going to be pretty hazy moving forward.

There was a decided lack of plastic and circuitry genocide for going on fifteen seconds and I spared an eye to check on Grace to make sure she wasn’t picking up anything heavier.  She sat sobbing her eyes glued to the television in apparent acceptance.  I took a seat beside her and threw an arm around her.  She buried her face in my shoulder and I could swear she daintily wiped her nose on my suit coat but I graciously let it pass.  We sat and watched and the emotions crossing our faces matched the shifting screens of the news feed.

Nina

More domestic policy should be solved with the public at large with a stockpile of mortar rounds and the politicians using the words that got them elected.  The compound was close to a mile across and the security had been wiped out in the first half hour.  Children were running gleefully across the back of the line with shells and machine gun rounds.  I kept them out of range from the opposition’s defenses but it was an effort.  Father and daughter reloading together and Mother and son sniper teams were ruling the day. 

The house on the hill was now in range of the mortars and we were hitting it hard.  Men wielding small arms periodically ran from cover heading to the vehicles and went down in a hail of bullets.  The constant barrage of sniper fire over the past week had stripped the defenses bare of the fields and they were ablaze with the smoke curling in almost every direction.

The offensive was only about an hour and a half in and the reserves had come into relieve the first wave.  Fresh enthusiastic explosives and bullets went tearing through the main house and waiting vehicles.  Two walls of the main house finally buckled and whoops of joy went up.  I finally called a cease fire and Cheetoh’s team and the Tanaka’s and I moved forward to clear the area surrounding the main house.

I was just clearing one of the cocaine refineries when a guy in a bloodied suit came out of a back room rushed me and knocked away my weapon and buried his knife in my forearm.  He stayed close to keep others from shooting.  He had one arm wrapped around my neck and a gun pressed into my neck.  I pulled the knife and jammed it in his wrist holding the gun.  I did it with enough force to push the gun off my nick but it still went off and the guys head exploded giving Cheetoh a brain and blood facial. 

The body still managed to push me to the ground and it took a while to get out from under it.  I was tying a bandage around my arm with the help of a Tanaka when I saw the look on Cheetoh’s face.  He looked like a murderous clown who went off his meds with the blood and orange dreadlocks. 

“That was the guy who took Machita’s wife and kids.”  He said somberly but with a vicious smile cracking his lips.  The blood was visible on his teeth and the scene made me wish I could be a normal girl that could throw up at such a sight.  With my past and friendships it wasn’t even worth a wet burp.

Cheetoh and I clumped outside and let the rest of the team clear the last building.  Cheetoh was walking with a limp.  Other than us, there was only one other casualty.  A boy had ran to a forward position and taken a bullet in the butt on the return trip.  Last I had scene he had many of the village girls playing nurse.

“What happened to you?” I asked Cheetoh casually.  He adopted a defensive posture and shrugged.

“I twisted my ankle coming through the fence.”  He said sheepishly.

“Remind me to never let you train troops again.”  I said with a smirk.  He snorted and clapped me on the back.

“Remind me to never clear a building with you again.”  I gave him a severe look that usually sent people’s skin to crawling but Cheetoh just widened his grin and slapped me on the back again.  I signaled the troops forward for clean up and egress before the political puppets sent the army after us.

Fritz

Hans peeked through the door and gave me a searching look before oozing in and shutting the door quietly.  Grace’s office was next door and Hans had a haunted cast to his face but his eyes were shining and I doubted I would get an apology.

“You outdid yourself this time bro.”  I said mildly.

“No one knew it was me.  Not even the mercenaries.”  He said defensively.

“Not true, Nina’s uncle knew you did it and now he’s got something on you.  You just put us at a distinct disadvantage with the Souh’s.”  Hans looked abashed and penitent which was more than a little shocking.  I might get that apology after all.

“So what is your punishment?”

“It’s already been carried out.”  I turned the phone around and showed him the light to Grace’s office was on and she had been listening in.  It was sheer coincidence that Hans walked in when he did but let him think I had the upper hand.  It might even keep me from having to keep too close tabs on him.   The only reason Grace had taken so long was she was probably looking for all the weapons she had stashed in her office.  I had disarmed her just in case and when she came through the door and launched herself at Hans I was kind of glad I did.

I left the office skirting the walls so I wouldn’t be drawn into the melee.  The Leper had a fresh financial report that would probably allow me to use the laundering money to buy out all our families’ financial interests in the next six months.  Life was looking up for me.  The high pitch squeal told me that Grace had Hans well in hand and the rest of our cousins had some new found respect for us.  Now if I could only get my girlfriend out of firefights long enough for a date I could almost be content.