| General Fiction posted November 26, 2012 | Chapters: |
...75 76 -77- 78... 
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Lon and Manx save the day
A chapter in the book Short
Whirled Without End
by Bill Schott
"Did you see that?" asked Lon, with a perplexed look on his face.
"You mean that huge fiery ball that just rose up out of the horizon like the opening eyelid of a god?" said Manx, smiling, referring to the dawning sun.
"No! I mean the van! Down there on the highway! It was racing to that curve like it was going to drive right through the railing!"
"Did it?"
"Did it what?" asked Lon, not sure where their conversation started.
"Did what?" asked Manx.
"I don't know," said Lon finally. "Let's get back to the office."
"This stakeout was sure a waste of time," said Manx, sighing. "That's what this was, right - a stakeout?"
Lon and Manx returned to the sedan they had borrowed from the lady in suite number 40. Lon had put their panel van in the shop, forgetting they needed to make the stakeout. Lon's contact in the military was certain that there would be a convoy passing through these mountain roads just before dawn. Manx wasn't sure how this was connected to the Kennedy Assassination, but it was a lead.
"Did you see our new neighbor, the accountant?" asked Lon with a smile.
"Yeah." replied Manx, feigning interest. "What's her name?"
"Othella. Othella Shakespeare."
"There is no way in hell that that's her name." said Manx. "What is it really?"
"Why can't that be her name?"
"Are you serious? A Nubian princess, with the name of a Moor general from a play by Christopher Marlowe, that just so happens to share the same name as the mayor of the Great Lakes (GL). What are the odds of that?"
"If Ms. Shakespeare were here, as an accountant, she'd be able to calculate that for you."
The pair got into the on-loan automobile, fired up the charcoal boiler and when it was fully steaming, headed back to their office, suite 39, in the old building complex. It was just off the overpass near the Great Lakes District perimeter.
Lon and Manx had been in surveillance work since the end of the Great Society back in the twentieth century. John Kennedy's second term of office saw his second vice-president (since LBJ had died in office), his brother Bobby, inaugurated as the 36th President. When Ted Kennedy's term of office ended in 1984, the Green Party was able to gain the presidency for a term. They had been followed by the GOP for eight years,the Socialists to bring us into the twenty-first century, the Texaska Party for eight, and right back to the Kennedy clan when JFK, Jr. took the helm in 'oh eight.' It was during his re-election campaign that he was supposedly shot by two crazy rock-a-billy groupies, just outside a book repository in the capital of The Great Lakes District, Toledo.
"Don't miss the turn off," warned Lon, nervously enduring the ride with Manx.
"Well," said Manx, pointing ahead, "it's turn or run into the GL Wall; right?"
"Like you haven't run into it fifty-two times already! The Great Lakes Wall is like brakes to you!"
The wall, which stood fifty feet, and completely surrounded the land around all five great lakes, had been built back in the GOP administration. Then Prime Minister Quail thought it a proper use of public funds, since the nations capital would be moved to Toledo.
Manx followed the off ramp and took the car safely back to the complex. Once there, the two reviewed the package they had received from the Clintons. It had been delivered personally by Mrs. Clinton, who was up from Arkansas with the cover story of looking at property investments. The Clintons had compiled evidence of a widespread cover-up throughout the parliament. Their daughter had discovered many classified reports while working at the capital as a page.
It seems that after years of sanctions against the United States of Indochina (USI), which had supposedly been obtaining Hadesium from all over the world, all activities were suddenly suspended. Sanctions were withdrawn, diplomatic relations were completely ended, and no mention of the USI's activities were mentioned in the press or on the voice receivers.
"Hello fellas," chirped the lovely and cheerful accountant neighbor. "Thanks for bringing the BW back in one piece."
"B W?" asked Manx, unfamiliar with the name.
"Beats walkin' Manny," she said.
"Name's Manx," he corrected.
"Sorry," she said, smiling. "No disrespect. My name is Othella, but my friends call me Beany."
"Beany?" repeated Manx, with a 'ya gotta be kiddin' me' look on his face.
"Bean counter?" she emphasized with a 'you gotta problem?' countenance that proceeded, "Some just call me BS."
"Well," said Manx, "now we're making sense."
"I hate to interrupt this Welcome Wagon moment," said Lon. "These papers indicate that some sort of device has actually been created."
"What are you guys talking about," asked Othella. "Are you two spies?"
"No, we're not spies," said Manx. Then turning to Lon with a puzzled expression, "Why is she standing here. Why are we talking about this? Who is this woman?" Returning his gaze to the accountant, "Who are you - really?"
Manx felt a thud on the back of his head. Darkness followed and then a dream began to play out.
He was working on an old car in his parents' garage. It had a different looking boiler in it than any he'd ever seen before. Then he was in the car with a girl. She was a girl from high school. He had always thought she looked more like a boy. They were sitting together in the front seat and there was a huge moving picture being projected somehow in front of them. It seemed so awesome and surreal.
Next, he was back in the war. What war? It seemed so real. Everything around him seemed like a memory, but he hadn't been in any war. Yet, it wasn't totally unfamiliar. Helicopters, screaming, explosions, blood.
Fishing with the kids. 'Where's Shep?' he thought. Then 'Who's Shep?' Then a big, barking dog bounded into the stream. He chased the fly that the kid with the pole was casting. Then water and the sense of drowning. The torture!
The device! They wanted to know where the device was. 'What device?' He knew what device. The one that would change the world. The device that would create the solar collapse that would then attract all remaining material from everywhere. The resulting hole would pull the known reality into the maelstrom of the accretion disk and then -- the black hole. Water! Drowning!
Manx woke up. He was inside his own van and apparently speeding down the highway. He was still hazy and getting spectral images of peoples' reactions to news off the voice receivers.
'A device had been captured,' one image stated.
'The Prime Minister wants it dismantled,' relayed another.
'The PM was assassinated!' hollered another blank face.
Everyone was looking for a man and a woman. Manx then clearly saw Lon and the accountant up in the front seat of the van.
"Lon! What the hell is going on?"
"We've got the device Manx," said Lon, calmly, from the passenger seat.
"Yeah Manny!" said BS, Beany, Othella whatever. "We are taking it to the people who will launch it to the sun. Then - POW! We reset the universe and do-rey-mee!"
"Lonnie!" Manx tried to think and recall while he pleaded with his friend. "We did this already. We captured this contraption. Gave it to Toledo. Something happened."
"Sorry I hit you so hard, buddy," Lonnie said, trying to comfort his friend from his seat. "You
must have had some strange dreams while you were out. BS stole this baby just last night."
"Security in Toledo is for shit," said the Nubian princess. "We lifted the device and placed it in the floor of this van. We drove away like nobody's business."
"Lon." Manx loudly whispered. "The Prime Minister?"
"BS is one hell of a shot Manx," Lon said with pride. "Those Kennedy boys always seemed so indestructible. They are not."
"The diversion of a presidential assassination helped to make this heist happen," said the probably-not-an-accountant.
"This is all wrong, Lon."
"Buck up buddy," Lon said, smiling. "It won't matter one iota soon. Hey! Recognize this place? Oh, I guess you can't back there. We were up her last night looking for that convoy. I needed to be somewhere other than where BS was going to be. There was never a convoy. Sorry."
"Lon," said Manx, there's something wrong. We've done this. We have done all of this - but different."
"Go back to sleep Manfred," said BS, chuckling. "Drop dead if you like."
"You tried to stop this, Lon," Manx said. "You saved the President's life. Shakespeare was the President. I built the device."
The assassin began laughing out loud. It affected her driving and she slowed down a bit more around the winding turn on the mountain road.
Manx felt a burst of energy well up inside of him. He sprang up from the van floor and leaped at the device that sat between the two front seats. Lon was totally surprised and wrestled with Manx on the floor. The driver swerved and the tires squealed as she kept the vehicle on the road.
"I can stop this, Lon!" he shouted. "I can make it inert by the press of a button."
"Give it up, Manx!" Lon shouted back.
Manx was able to get the front flap of the device open as Lon tried to apply a half nelson on his partner. Manx finally spun around and punched Lon in the nose. This sent the 'now-assuming-he's-a-former-partner' falling back stunned.
Manx could clearly see the nine buttons that were the matrix for setting all actions on the device. One order of buttons pushed set the ignition timer, another order canceled it; yet another would act as a detonator. He was certain of the code, but no longer able to remember which code did what. It was as if he had practiced this scenario a hundred times with a hundred combinations of buttons to push. Now he wasn't sure what would happen.
The driver looked back in horror, seeing that all of her efforts could now be for nothing. She stomped on the accelerator and headed for the space beyond the guard rails.
Manx pressed a button with zero confidence. The timer on the device was set to ignite at any moment. The van smashed through the guard rail with the speedometer pegged. Impact! Bright lights! Vacuum!
"Did you see that?" asked a perplexed Othella.
"You mean that huge fiery ball that just rose up out of the horizon like the opening eyelid of a god?" asked Shep with a sarcastic bark, referring to the dawning sun.
This Sentence Starts The Story contest entry
"Did you see that?" asked Lon, with a perplexed look on his face.
"You mean that huge fiery ball that just rose up out of the horizon like the opening eyelid of a god?" said Manx, smiling, referring to the dawning sun.
"No! I mean the van! Down there on the highway! It was racing to that curve like it was going to drive right through the railing!"
"Did it?"
"Did it what?" asked Lon, not sure where their conversation started.
"Did what?" asked Manx.
"I don't know," said Lon finally. "Let's get back to the office."
"This stakeout was sure a waste of time," said Manx, sighing. "That's what this was, right - a stakeout?"
Lon and Manx returned to the sedan they had borrowed from the lady in suite number 40. Lon had put their panel van in the shop, forgetting they needed to make the stakeout. Lon's contact in the military was certain that there would be a convoy passing through these mountain roads just before dawn. Manx wasn't sure how this was connected to the Kennedy Assassination, but it was a lead.
"Did you see our new neighbor, the accountant?" asked Lon with a smile.
"Yeah." replied Manx, feigning interest. "What's her name?"
"Othella. Othella Shakespeare."
"There is no way in hell that that's her name." said Manx. "What is it really?"
"Why can't that be her name?"
"Are you serious? A Nubian princess, with the name of a Moor general from a play by Christopher Marlowe, that just so happens to share the same name as the mayor of the Great Lakes (GL). What are the odds of that?"
"If Ms. Shakespeare were here, as an accountant, she'd be able to calculate that for you."
The pair got into the on-loan automobile, fired up the charcoal boiler and when it was fully steaming, headed back to their office, suite 39, in the old building complex. It was just off the overpass near the Great Lakes District perimeter.
Lon and Manx had been in surveillance work since the end of the Great Society back in the twentieth century. John Kennedy's second term of office saw his second vice-president (since LBJ had died in office), his brother Bobby, inaugurated as the 36th President. When Ted Kennedy's term of office ended in 1984, the Green Party was able to gain the presidency for a term. They had been followed by the GOP for eight years,the Socialists to bring us into the twenty-first century, the Texaska Party for eight, and right back to the Kennedy clan when JFK, Jr. took the helm in 'oh eight.' It was during his re-election campaign that he was supposedly shot by two crazy rock-a-billy groupies, just outside a book repository in the capital of The Great Lakes District, Toledo.
"Don't miss the turn off," warned Lon, nervously enduring the ride with Manx.
"Well," said Manx, pointing ahead, "it's turn or run into the GL Wall; right?"
"Like you haven't run into it fifty-two times already! The Great Lakes Wall is like brakes to you!"
The wall, which stood fifty feet, and completely surrounded the land around all five great lakes, had been built back in the GOP administration. Then Prime Minister Quail thought it a proper use of public funds, since the nations capital would be moved to Toledo.
Manx followed the off ramp and took the car safely back to the complex. Once there, the two reviewed the package they had received from the Clintons. It had been delivered personally by Mrs. Clinton, who was up from Arkansas with the cover story of looking at property investments. The Clintons had compiled evidence of a widespread cover-up throughout the parliament. Their daughter had discovered many classified reports while working at the capital as a page.
It seems that after years of sanctions against the United States of Indochina (USI), which had supposedly been obtaining Hadesium from all over the world, all activities were suddenly suspended. Sanctions were withdrawn, diplomatic relations were completely ended, and no mention of the USI's activities were mentioned in the press or on the voice receivers.
"Hello fellas," chirped the lovely and cheerful accountant neighbor. "Thanks for bringing the BW back in one piece."
"B W?" asked Manx, unfamiliar with the name.
"Beats walkin' Manny," she said.
"Name's Manx," he corrected.
"Sorry," she said, smiling. "No disrespect. My name is Othella, but my friends call me Beany."
"Beany?" repeated Manx, with a 'ya gotta be kiddin' me' look on his face.
"Bean counter?" she emphasized with a 'you gotta problem?' countenance that proceeded, "Some just call me BS."
"Well," said Manx, "now we're making sense."
"I hate to interrupt this Welcome Wagon moment," said Lon. "These papers indicate that some sort of device has actually been created."
"What are you guys talking about," asked Othella. "Are you two spies?"
"No, we're not spies," said Manx. Then turning to Lon with a puzzled expression, "Why is she standing here. Why are we talking about this? Who is this woman?" Returning his gaze to the accountant, "Who are you - really?"
Manx felt a thud on the back of his head. Darkness followed and then a dream began to play out.
He was working on an old car in his parents' garage. It had a different looking boiler in it than any he'd ever seen before. Then he was in the car with a girl. She was a girl from high school. He had always thought she looked more like a boy. They were sitting together in the front seat and there was a huge moving picture being projected somehow in front of them. It seemed so awesome and surreal.
Next, he was back in the war. What war? It seemed so real. Everything around him seemed like a memory, but he hadn't been in any war. Yet, it wasn't totally unfamiliar. Helicopters, screaming, explosions, blood.
Fishing with the kids. 'Where's Shep?' he thought. Then 'Who's Shep?' Then a big, barking dog bounded into the stream. He chased the fly that the kid with the pole was casting. Then water and the sense of drowning. The torture!
The device! They wanted to know where the device was. 'What device?' He knew what device. The one that would change the world. The device that would create the solar collapse that would then attract all remaining material from everywhere. The resulting hole would pull the known reality into the maelstrom of the accretion disk and then -- the black hole. Water! Drowning!
Manx woke up. He was inside his own van and apparently speeding down the highway. He was still hazy and getting spectral images of peoples' reactions to news off the voice receivers.
'A device had been captured,' one image stated.
'The Prime Minister wants it dismantled,' relayed another.
'The PM was assassinated!' hollered another blank face.
Everyone was looking for a man and a woman. Manx then clearly saw Lon and the accountant up in the front seat of the van.
"Lon! What the hell is going on?"
"We've got the device Manx," said Lon, calmly, from the passenger seat.
"Yeah Manny!" said BS, Beany, Othella whatever. "We are taking it to the people who will launch it to the sun. Then - POW! We reset the universe and do-rey-mee!"
"Lonnie!" Manx tried to think and recall while he pleaded with his friend. "We did this already. We captured this contraption. Gave it to Toledo. Something happened."
"Sorry I hit you so hard, buddy," Lonnie said, trying to comfort his friend from his seat. "You
must have had some strange dreams while you were out. BS stole this baby just last night."
"Security in Toledo is for shit," said the Nubian princess. "We lifted the device and placed it in the floor of this van. We drove away like nobody's business."
"Lon." Manx loudly whispered. "The Prime Minister?"
"BS is one hell of a shot Manx," Lon said with pride. "Those Kennedy boys always seemed so indestructible. They are not."
"The diversion of a presidential assassination helped to make this heist happen," said the probably-not-an-accountant.
"This is all wrong, Lon."
"Buck up buddy," Lon said, smiling. "It won't matter one iota soon. Hey! Recognize this place? Oh, I guess you can't back there. We were up her last night looking for that convoy. I needed to be somewhere other than where BS was going to be. There was never a convoy. Sorry."
"Lon," said Manx, there's something wrong. We've done this. We have done all of this - but different."
"Go back to sleep Manfred," said BS, chuckling. "Drop dead if you like."
"You tried to stop this, Lon," Manx said. "You saved the President's life. Shakespeare was the President. I built the device."
The assassin began laughing out loud. It affected her driving and she slowed down a bit more around the winding turn on the mountain road.
Manx felt a burst of energy well up inside of him. He sprang up from the van floor and leaped at the device that sat between the two front seats. Lon was totally surprised and wrestled with Manx on the floor. The driver swerved and the tires squealed as she kept the vehicle on the road.
"I can stop this, Lon!" he shouted. "I can make it inert by the press of a button."
"Give it up, Manx!" Lon shouted back.
Manx was able to get the front flap of the device open as Lon tried to apply a half nelson on his partner. Manx finally spun around and punched Lon in the nose. This sent the 'now-assuming-he's-a-former-partner' falling back stunned.
Manx could clearly see the nine buttons that were the matrix for setting all actions on the device. One order of buttons pushed set the ignition timer, another order canceled it; yet another would act as a detonator. He was certain of the code, but no longer able to remember which code did what. It was as if he had practiced this scenario a hundred times with a hundred combinations of buttons to push. Now he wasn't sure what would happen.
The driver looked back in horror, seeing that all of her efforts could now be for nothing. She stomped on the accelerator and headed for the space beyond the guard rails.
Manx pressed a button with zero confidence. The timer on the device was set to ignite at any moment. The van smashed through the guard rail with the speedometer pegged. Impact! Bright lights! Vacuum!
"Did you see that?" asked a perplexed Othella.
"You mean that huge fiery ball that just rose up out of the horizon like the opening eyelid of a god?" asked Shep with a sarcastic bark, referring to the dawning sun.
 Recognized |
The concept of this story seems to escape the readers. The whole idea is that the 'device' has already been detonated and everyone is reliving happenings in continually shifting roles. Manx sees a hint to this when he is unconscious after Lon bonked him. At the end, Othella and Shep (the dog) are where Lon and Manx were in the beginning.
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