by Blogbot


["Honey" - Manko]


["Blue So Blue" - Blue]

Artist / SG Member Name: Vivid Vivka a.k.a. Vivid Suicide

Mission Statement: I sling paint, and if someone likes it...that's a bonus.


["Brim"]

Medium: Acrylic, pen, marker, wood, canvas, spray paint, coffee grounds, blood, sweat, spit, tears.

Aesthetic: Naked and distorted. Usually with big hair, empty eyes, a lot of pink.


["Yellow" - Yellow]

Notable Achievements: I believe three people have my work tattooed on their persons. To me, that’s a helluva achievement and intensely flattering. Ink aside, I have a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, in Detroit, MI. I majored in Illustration with a graphic background. I’ve made pieces for childrens’ hospitals in Detroit, had a few gallery shows, and had my work stolen for a ton of shitty band/party flyers. (Stop. Doing. That.)

Why We Should Care: 9 out of 10 viewers agree: it's art.


["The Queen of Crows (and Three Little Insects)"]

I Want Me Some: Much of my past art projects can be found on my DeviantArt (as well as many of my modeling photos). For prints and originals, I sell my work at vivka.etsy.com (more originals up soon...kinda sold out right now). Proper website and webstore to be unveiled with glitter and sparkles around mid 2012.


["This Time..." - Adria]


["Not This Times..." - Rambo]


["Booty" - Pirate]


["Dead Fish // Live Fish"]
***

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by A.J. Focht


[Bob and Kemper in Droids You’re Looking For]

Superheroes are taking back Saturday mornings. A few weeks ago, Cartoon Network announced they were doing a new block of programing called DC Nation that would feature the DC heroes. Now its Marvel’s turn for the kind of cartoon resurgence we’ve been waiting for ever since Disney bought them out. The mouse-eared company will be starting their own superhero programming block called Marvel Universe. It will provide exclusive Marvel content including series of The Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor. They will also be doing a Spider-Man series based on the Ultimate Spider-Man line, but it will feature Peter Parker, not the new Miles Morales.

Thor 2 has seen a lot of trouble pre-production, but they’ve finally settled on a writer. Robert Rodat, whose previous credits include Saving Private Ryan, will be penning the sequel to the Marvel blockbuster. The script needs to be completed pretty soon as they plan to start filming this summer.

The live action Star Wars television series is not just a myth, and now it has a name. In a recent interview with IGN, Rick McCallum, producer and right-hand man of George Lucas himself, announced the working title for the series is Star Wars: Underworld. There is no sure date when it will launch; they are apparently waiting until they can economically produce it for $5 million an episode.

Star Trek 2 has added a new cast member in the form of Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch. While his exact role has not been named, it is widely considered he will be a new villain in the J.J. Abrams sequel.

There is a new face to Ash William from the Evil Dead series, and she looks nothing like Bruce Campbell. Lily Collins (The Blind Side) is the first official member to join the cast of the new incarnation, taking the lead role. Now, to be fair, she will not be Ash, her name will be Mia. She will however being playing a part very similar to that played by Campbell in the 1981 original. I hope her name is actually Michael or something of the like just as a throwback to Ashley (Ash) Williams.

While were thinking about zombies, is this a good time to mention that World War Z will be a trilogy. After a chorus of complaints about the first one taking place during the actual Zombie War and not after like the book does, this may be Paramount Pictures way of making up for that, or more likely just a way to capitalize on the fad. Either way, we can hope the second and third movie will do the book some justice where it looks like the first will fail.

AMC is on a roll with innovative programming like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, and now they are bringing a mafia classic back to life. The company is producing a cable series based on the Martin Scorsese 1990 mobster classic, Goodfellas. To make the news even better, Nicholas Pileggi, writer of the movie and the original non-fiction book it was based on, Wiseguy, is set to co-write the series.

We have another classic being brought back to life, albeit in a different medium. After twenty-five years as a cult favorite, The Labyrinth will be getting a prequel in the form of a graphic novel. The long rumored project will explore the story of how Jareth, the guy played by David Bowie, comes to the Labyrinth for the first time.

Finally, just a friendly reminder to everyone wanting to attend San Diego Comic-Con 2012, they have changed their registration system. If you would like to register for a ticket to go, you first have to preregister for a Member ID. You can start this process now via the Comic-Con website. Just don’t get stuck being unable to snag a ticket the day they go on sale because you didn’t preregister.

By Nicole Breanne

The Stones, Bowie, Elvis, Hendrix, The Beatles, they all played on vinyl throughout my formative years. These guys are the soundtrack of my childhood. I was also intrigued by photographs from that era. Candid shots of the rock stars were my favorite. I would also notice the beautiful girls that were with them. I didn't know who they were or what they did, but one in particular stood out. As I grew older and the internet came into play, I did my research, Pamela Des Barres was the name.

Pamela Des Barres - known as Miss Pamela, Queen of the Groupies - is world famous, mostly for the company she's kept. But after reading her books, watching her documentaries, and being part of the music scene myself, I realized she was so much more. And as I got into journalism (I started as rock writer), my desire to meet and know Pamela grew and grew. Finally, I got the balls to shoot her an email and ask her for an interview…



Nicole Breanne: I grew up in a very musical household, not only did we have vinyl, but we had a lot of candid shots of rock stars. Those were my favorite. I always saw these really beautiful girls, you in particular, and I would think to myself, “I want to be those girls.” Now I look at groupies and I'm like, “Ugh, really?”

Pamela Des Barres PDB: You can't use groupie in a negative way like you just did, I forbid it

NB: Well, that's kind of my point, I don't see them as groupies like I see you as one. I just didn't know if I could call them star fuckers in your living room.

PDB: [laughs] I don't call them that, I don't call them anything. That wasn't what we were about. I didn't have sex for a long time, I wanted it to be special and I wanted to really love the person and have them really love me. But I did give oral sex - I really wanted to show my appreciation.

NB: Exactly! You weren't there to just screw rock stars. You were these beautiful girls that were there for the band, you appreciated the music. I really feel like you guys did so much more.

PDB: I'm glad you feel that way because a lot of the bands felt that way. It wasn't us just trying to be with them, they wanted us there. The super groupies got to be up on stage, we felt what they were feeling. It was thrilling beyond words to be up on stage when The Who was doing Tommy, The Stones with “Gimme Shelter.” I've been in some pretty amazing places.

NB: You're so good about giving details, and not giving too much. You don't go into who's big and who's not.

PDB: People ask that all the time! Who was the best? Who was the biggest? The funniest question I get asked, and I get asked it a lot, is, “What is jimmy pages dick like?” [laughs] So many people want to know that! It's like wow, sorry, if you can't find out for yourself, I’m not gonna go that far. They don't ask about Jim Morrison or Jagger. I guess everyone saw Jagger, but Jimmy is the one they ask about.

NB: You really loved these guys, was it hard to watch them live that extreme lifestyle?

PDB: Yeah, I had to walk away sometimes. I was scared for them, sure I was. I saw them doing more and more, and the drugs got harder, it wasn't just hash. I won't lie, I did it too. I did it all. I never shot up though. I guess I'm lucky that I'm not an addictive person, I could walk away. But there were a few times when I had to leave because I couldn't watch.

NB: Again, you really cared about these guys — but you weren't the only girl that was around. When I watched the documentary based on your second book, Let's Spend The Night Together: Confessions of Rock's Greatest Groupies, I was struck by how there was no jealousy. Was there any of that?

PDB: No. We all really liked each other and we were careful not to step on each other’s toes. When the scene changed and some younger girls came in — that's a different story. They just wanted us out, and there was name-calling and that kind of thing. Not all of them. There are a few good girls that I still keep in touch with. But the original girls weren't like that. I loved doing that documentary because I got to spend double time with the girls. They're still some of my best friends.

NB: What's it like when you listen to the music of that time - do you still feel that same?

PDB: Some of it is way too emotional. It brings back way too many emotional things. I get very heady. I can't even listen to “Stairway.” It brings back way too many memories. When it's on the radio I can't wait to turn it off, especially if I'm driving. I still listen to Graham Parsons. I was moved by him and his voice and his intense desire to share what he was doing with music. He was so dedicate and I’m obsessed with him still. There was a girl from France who was interviewing me because she's doing a comic book series on the GTO's and I asked if she knew him and she said no [so] I gave her CDs. I'm like that, because if someone really loves music, they need to know Graham. That's what he was about, spreading music.

NB: In your second book you talk about your divorce, your son — it's a very personal book. Did you just decide that you were going to go balls out with this and tell it all?

PDB: I did that with all my books. But my second book...it's a different book, its my favorite one. It's not as well read as the first one, the first one was a bestseller for a long time. I have fans, they're reading them, but I wish more people knew about the sequel.

NB: You're working on your fifth book now...

PDB: Yeah, my fifth book will be about my spiritual journey. My agent is having a hard time selling it because I am perceived as a “groupie” and a “groupie” shouldn't have spirituality I guess. But we have interest from a smaller house.

NB: You teach a writing class - how did that start?

PDB: I would periodically go take a refresher creative writing course throughout my life. Moon Zappa said, “I've got this really cool writing teacher you may want to check it out.” So, I went and half-way through the class I thought – I should be teaching this, I could be teaching this! So I thought about it for a year, then I decided to take the plunge and just go for it. I advertised on MySpace, because that's what was happening at the time. My first group met right here, about 10-12 girls, and they loved it. It's just great groups of women who are all like-minded, and they have these amazing stories, so life long friendships are made. It's worked out. I've been doing it for 12 years now. I've been traveling and now I teach all over and I’m doing my first European trip too.

NB: How do you feel about music today?

PDB: There's a lot of things I like, nothing like the renaissance I lived though where every thing was great – The Stones, The Byrds, The Doors. I had to choose between The Stones and The Burrito's. I remember Mercy invited me to Monterrey and I said, “I can't go I can't miss The Burrito Brothers!” Now that is one of the few things I regret. But I love Lucinda Williams. She’s the only singer that has moved me like that in decades. I liked Ryan Adams for a while. He went off the rails for a bit, but his new album is good. My boyfriend Mike Stinson is the greatest songwriter. I still go to see Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dylan always, always. I set my alarm to make sure I get up to get the best seats. Paul McCartney. Mainly the bands I liked then I'll go see now.

NB: Do you feel like it could happen again? That someone can come along and just revolutionize music?

PDB: It happened in rap, Eminem is a real big favorite of mine because he took that whole other part of music and created it for himself. That was amazing. He's the last person that has moved me in that kind of way, in the way that I was like, “Wow, this guy is doing something.” Not since Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain was the dude.

***

I left Pamela's house completely elated. She was more than I had ever dreamed she could be. She was poised and kind, and still insanely beautiful. Part of me hoped that meeting her would quell my thirst for that time. Maybe it wouldn't be as great as I thought it was, maybe she wouldn't be. But, alas, I'm left with even more of a longing – so much so, that I'll be at her January writing class. If, like me, you can't get enough of Pamela, be sure to sign up for one of her creative writing workshops. Alternatively, you can join one of her Rock Tours, during which she takes groups around Hollywood to her old haunts and reads excerpts from her book. It's a pretty kick ass trip down memory lane!

by Blogbot


[Olga in http://suicidegirls.com/girls/Olga/photos/Party++Girl/ " target="_blank">Party Girl]

SuicideGirls’ team of Bloggers and Agony Aunts share their suggestions on how you can give 2012 a kick-ass kick start.

1. There's someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. Too long. You fear by now you've procrastinated so long that it's lame to reach out, so you've effectively paralyzed a valuable friendship that could easily re-blossom with a single call. You're not paralyzed, it's just a head trip. Guilt is useless. Make that call. Say Hi. Apologize. Laugh. Love. Life's too short. Do it right now. “Happy New Year! I suck” is a great way to start a conversation! – Steve Altman

2. Cut off deadwood! Start by defriending, hiding or blocking the toxic individuals from your Facebook and Twitter feeds. – Dalila Suicide

3. Spend time with people that make you feel taller, brighter, and more capable than you did before. – Darrah de jour

4. Try dating someone you wouldn't ordinarily date. Like, say, maybe an introverted writer-type that contributes to your favorite alt-beauty blog. Or an evangelical Christian. Those are your only two choices though: the writer or the evangelical. Choose wisely. – Matt Dunbar

5. Spend some time with a niece, nephew or cousin who are growing up and could use your advice. – Atlea Suicide

6. Talk to someone from your Facebook list face-to-face. – CoyoteMike

7. Come to terms with the fact that you mom has a Facebook. – Shotgun Suicide

8. Eating vegetarian style meals reduces the green house gas production. Try to incorporate this in to your lifestyle one day a week. It's good for you and the earth. – Aadie Suicide

9. Eat lots and lots of cupcakes!!!! What? They’re epic and always put a smile on my face! – Kraven Suicide

10. Unfuck your habitat! There's nothing like vastly improving your quality of life by having a clean, organized living space. Need tips and/or motivation? Visit unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/, because "no matter what our situations are, we deserve better than to live in filth." – Perdita Suicide

11. Clean your car and your house through and through. – Atlea Suicide

12. Rearrange a room to get a fresh perspective on life. – Rambo Suicide

13. Go through all your clothes and decide if someone could make better use of some of them. Drop the excess baggage off at a shelter or contributing organization in your area. – Atlea Suicide

14. Donate those holiday presents that you don't like. – Shotgun Suicide

15. Shop local whenever possible. – Salome Suicide

16. Eat at your favorite mom & pop restaurant, before it goes bankrupt too. – Shotgun Suicide

17. Set up a computer backup plan. Be ready for World Backup Day. – Bob Suicide

18. Start and finish a project you've had in mind for a long time. Renovations, painting a vase, knitting, really anything. – Atlea Suicide

19. Set a stupid goal and accomplish it, to prove to yourself that you can. – Darrah de jour

20. Quit saying you will do something and actually do it. When tasks, errands, and commitments are followed through with you feel much more productive. – Kraven Suicide

21. Take a risk. – Darrah de jour

22. Spend an hour with a happy dog, scratching his or her ears. – CoyoteMike

23. Try to go outside each day. Go for a walk. Make sure you have at least 20 minutes of "me" time. This way you’re incorporating self-thought and exercise. It's very important to get to know yourself. You could be pleasantly surprised. – Aadie Suicide

24. Learn a new skill: baking, crocheting, taxidermy, etc. – Rambo Suicide

25. Take a college class that you want to take, not one that you need. – Shotgun Suicide

26. Find a hobby you can dedicate some time to. Something you love and have passion for. It keeps us young at heart and sane when we can lose our selves in something. – Kraven Suicide

27. Splurge on some really fancy underwear. – Rambo Suicide

28. Add a little color to your life however you see fit. A colorful world is so much better than a black and white one. – Kraven Suicide

29. Make time for yourself. Seriously. Put it in your calendar. Whether it is daily, weekly or monthly, schedule some time and don't cut out on it for anyone. You're the only one looking out for you. – Smythe Suicide

30. Treat yourself to an energy renewal weekend, be it at the spa or simply just by unplugging the phone and reading a book. – Atlea Suicide

31. Set up an automatic transfer of money into a savings account each month. – Salome Suicide

32. Watch Fight Club. – Darrah de jour

33. Listen to Valleyheart by She Wants Revenge – Nicole Powers

34. Read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (snag a free copy here) - EisMC2 and JackalAnon

35. See more live comedy and live music. - Squee Suicide

36. Support non-profit journalism - American Independent News Network, Truthout, GregPalast.com, BradBlog.com are all 501c3's - donate to support the news that you read for free. Oh, and it's tax deductible. – ZDRoberts

37. Protest the NDAA, unless you don't care to plead the 5th. – Shotgun Suicide

38. Join the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) if you care about stopping SOPA. If you spend any time online, you should do. (For that matter, if you’re breathing, you should do!) – Nicole Powers

39. Protect your vote. The election is less than a year away, and you'll need to start working now to make sure your vote actually counts. Find out why and how by downloading Steal Back Your Vote for free. SuicideGirls helped promote the project so you know it's awesome and worth a read. – ZDRoberts

40. Get to know your presidential candidates. Look beyond the big social issues like abortion, and research their tax plans, health care ideas, and how they've voted in the past. You might find out they aren't who you thought they were based on a few Facebook posts and Twitter campaigns. The election is coming soon. – Damon Martin

41. Stop by and say hi to your local Occupy. Shake someone's hand and say “Thank you.” You’d be surprised how much it means to them. Oh, and give them a pair of mittens, it gets cold out there. – ZDRoberts

42. Write “Thank You” notes and post them to people who have helped you get through 2011. – Atlea Suicide

43. Send a letter to a friend, the kind with a stamp. – Shotgun Suicide

44. Create good karma. Treat others as you would want to be treated. In this day in age too many people are being hurtful towards one another in many forms. From anonymous hating via the internet, to being rude to a stranger just because your day didn’t go so well, to physical acts of hate out of spite, jealousy or lack of confidence. Think about how you can be a positive impact on others around you, from your family, friends, neighbors and strangers. Small gestures of kindness can go a long ways and karma will make its way back to you. – Dorsal Suicide

45. Pay for the next person in line at the coffee shop. – CoyoteMike

46. Find joy in the small things. It will help you appreciate the big things so much more. – Kraven Suicide

47. Make today count, because one day you will be nostalgic for it. – Shotgun Suicide

48. Spend more time living in the moment, and less time worrying about the past and the future. Neither of these exist – so live in the present! – Fabrizia Suicide

49. The past is over. Now move your ass. Welcome to 2012. – Darrah de jour

50. Have no regrets. It’s a New Year and that means progress. Do not look back, only forward to the happiness ahead! – Kraven Suicide

by A.J. Focht



Attached to the Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol IMAX screenings is a new six minute prologue for Dark Knight Rises. Many bootlegged copies were spread around online after its release, but Warner Bros. has done a good job of shutting them all down. For those not able to visit an IMAX theater and see the prologue, the first official trailer has been released. While Christian Bale’s voice in The Dark Knight was a running joke, it looks like Bane’s voice may be worse. Even though Warner Bros. is nervous about the fan response to the voice, Nolan refuses to change it.

Reports that Patty Jenkins left her position directing Thor 2 of her own accord may have been fabricated. Recently, sources reveal that she may have been terminated without any proper cause. Natalie Portman is said to be very upset over these changes, as she signed onto the film specifically because Jenkins was supposed to be directing it. While it’s unclear which story is correct, there is clearly drama brewing among the cast that could affect the movie’s deadline.

No more waiting for bits and pieces of information on the Amazing Spider-Man. Sony has launched the official website for the film. The site includes photos, trailers, information and more goodies. Any information on the movie that you’ve been wanting will likely be found there.



Following the release of a batch of posters last week, the producers of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance have released a new official trailer. It definitely captures the dark tone that the new film was going for while keeping the black humor that fans expect.

That’s it for the superhero movies, but there is one other big superhero project on the horizon. Marvel Comics will be making a novel adaptation of their classic Civil War storyline. Civil War was one of the most groundbreaking events in comics, and the novel, to be written by Stuart Moore, is set to hit shelves in June 2012.



Ridley Scott released a series of posters for his upcoming project Prometheus earlier this week, and has followed them up with teaser trailer footage. The first official full trailer will release this Thursday. While the project is not related to the Aliens universe, the posters and footage give it a very similar feeling.

First he’s in Oz, then he’s not, and now he is again. The roller coaster that is Bruce Campbell’s role in the upcoming http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/debbiedowner/news/?a=51593 " target="_blank">Oz: The Great and Powerful has kept the rumor mill turning. Most recently, we hear he’s back in and they have shot footage. While we still don’t know exactly what role he is playing, he did mention he will have a confrontation with Oz (played by James Franco).



For the manga lovers out there, there is some great news regarding Rurouni Kenshin. The first trailer of the live action movie has hit the internet. The film looks extremely well done, and the character casting appears to be spot on. It’s currently slated to hit Japanese theaters on August 25, 2012.



A full synopsis of The Hobbit has been released. No real surprises here, but a good chance to familiarize yourself with the story and what you can expect from the movie, if you don’t know already that is. To go along with that, the official trailer has been released. It’s looking to be just as epic as any of the Lord of the Rings movies.



Who is the best vampire slayer of all-time? If you answered Blade or Buffy, you’re wrong. The correct answer is, Abraham Lincoln. New posters for Tim Burton’s imagining of the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter book have been released. The official plot synopsis tells us that the film will explore the secret life of our greatest president, an untold story that shaped our nation. Amongst the wave of Twilight-inspired vampire trash, it will be nice to have a quality, dark, and likely humorous vampire story told in a way that only Tim Burton can.



On a final note, Doctor Who: Worlds In Time will preview this week. The new game based on the popular BBC sci-fi series is a free-to-play, browser based MMO game. Players choose their avatars and interact in a game environment with a traditional ‘Flash-based’ art style. While it’s not a big budget MMO, it should be a nice treat for those whole like to spend quality time with Time Lords.

by Mentalrage



Independent publisher Avatar Press founded in the early 90's has built up quite a reputation both for it's stable of Bad Girl comics like Pandora, Shi, and a recently rejuvenated Lady Death (via their Boundless imprint), but also more prominently as being the home of numerous creator-owned titles by some of the most high profile names in comics, with Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, David Lapham, and others being given free reign to tell stories with no restrictions. Another name in their cadre of writers is Alan Moore.

Alan Moore is probably amongst the most deified of scribes in the whole comics medium. He generally shuns the mainstream media and only gives interviews when it suits his purpose for publicizing a project of some sort . Whilst he may be best known for high profile works like V For Vendetta and Watchmen, his latest work for Avatar, Neonomicon, comes from another realm entirely.

Brears and Lamper are two FBI agents are tasked with investigating a series of bizarre ritual murders that are somehow connected to the final case of Aldo Sax. Sax, formerly one of the FBI's top agents, is now languishing in a maximum security facility after being convicted of numerous killings. After a frustrating interview with Sax, where he speaks only in a guttural inhuman tongue, the pair find themselves drawn to a seedy rock club and an occult book shop. Trying to make sense of the bizarre turn of events they find themselves caught up in, nothing prepares them for the sanity shattering truth that lies behind it all.

In a rare interview, Moore spoke with Wired about Neonomicon, and had this to say:

Neonomicon is probably amongst the most disturbingly misanthropic works you could read and will no doubt take a lot of readers by surprise especially considering that the book itself doesn't feature an explicit content advisory. Consider yourself warned.

Taking the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and adding in all the things that Lovecraft himself only made veiled references to, the “nameless rites” are rendered in disturbing clarity by Burrows refined art. I imagine a good number of readers will share the practically blind Brears' sense of disbelief after putting in her contacts and seeing with her own eyes the ugly truth for the first time.

Her reaction to this is portrayed in stages as she retreats into her own mind to escape from the horror of it, but then a more begrudging acceptance materializes, influenced by a briefly alluded to past and possibly a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome.

Burrows has already had plenty of experience in depicting disturbing imagery working on Crossed with Garth Ennis (also from Avatar), but I think in comparison to the constant desensitizing bombardment of atrocities seen in Crossed, his work here is given even more punch due to the relative brevity of things.

Undoubtedly Neonomicon will get dismissed by some out of hand just due to its graphic content, and it will no doubt rile some Lovecraft fans for depicting that which Lovecraft merely suggested. But for all its dark and disturbing glory, Moore is still an excellent writer and his meta-fictional treatment of Lovecraft is impressive. There's plenty going on beneath the surface, looking at language, how we interpret it, and the perception of reality. One scene involving Johnny Carcosa is a brilliant example of this and would be unachievable in any other medium. Throw in some pitch black humor and a few turned-on-their-heads clichés, along with a brutal gut punch of an ending, which makes you want to read it all over again and Neonomicon stays with you long after you’ve made it to the back cover.

Originally a four-part comic book series, Neonomicon is now available as a single hardcover volume.

by Darrah de jour



All over the United States, a band of activists has sprung up to take the law into their own gloved hands. “Real life Superheroes” are anywhere from 18 to 62 years old, run the gamut of ethnicities, backgrounds, and gender expressions, and have no real training in fighting crime. However, captured in the Michael Barnett documentary Superheroes, they appear to be part of a movement that’s taking flight.

“The film touches on a zeitgeist-y moment. I think we’re in a very troubled time right now as a society,” Director Barnett tells me over a whisky on the rocks in the dimly lit Santa Monica bar, The Yard. “#OccupyWallStreet is a very power to the people movement. People are fed up and they feel like they don’t have control and they don’t have a voice. And they’re trying to create one. This movement is so on par with that. Though a little more eccentric, it is a protest,” he asserts. “It’s saying ‘I don’t think government is efficient, I don’t think they’re helping us. I don’t think that help is coming from the top down.’”

The perky waitress seems thrilled to interrupt us to refill empty glasses and eavesdrop. The subject of our banter, which careens into after dark street patrolling and hand-made weaponry, is no secret however. In fact, there are a plethora of online forums (such as RealLifeSuperheroes.org) where you and I can engage with these Stan Lee-esque vigilantes, and now, they are under a worldwide spotlight.

Having just returned from a London screening, Barnett, a commercial director who self-funded the film, reluctantly reveals that Superheroes has won multiple awards. Accolades include The Audience Award at Calgary Underground Film Festival and The Grand Jury Award at the Los Angeles United Film Festival, among others. Shot over 15 months, this lauded and still slyly hip documentary shines a well-balanced light on a growing phenomenon, which is spearheaded by people who are self-sacrificing but not martyrs, unassuming but politically-conscious, proactive but not reward seeking.

During the day, RLSH are security guards, teachers, tattoo artists, and stay-at-home dads. But, at night, not unlike Clark Kent’s famous transition into Superman, these young men and women transform into “Dark Guardian,” “Amazonia,” “Mr. Xtreme,” “Zimmer,” and “T.S.A.F” – which stands for The Silenced And Forgotten, and belongs to one of the three female Superheroes represented in the doc.

Their real identities remain under wraps, as do their faces. Wearing sunglasses, baseball caps, head scarves and then, of course, their masks (with the exception of Zimmer, an out gay New Yorker for whom a mask would be too much like crawling back into the closet) none of the crime fighters reveal their true selves. Who they are during bank hours is less important – sometimes even to them – than who they are after dark.

***

In 1964, a 28-year-old Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was stabbed multiple times in the New York neighborhood of Queens, and left to die. She was brutally assaulted – physically and sexually – and left to bleed out. Another shocking aspect of this violent crime is that a number of neighbors saw or heard the attack in progress – and did nothing. Rather, they chose to turn out their lights and draw down their curtains. Allegedly, one neighbor even turned up his radio to drown out her screams. They simply “didn’t want to get involved,” one witness said. Kitty’s death made international headlines. In our own backyard, our most defeatist trait was killing women. Apathy.

The memory of Genovese’s death, and what is now termed “the bystander effect,” served as a call to arms for Mr. Xtreme, a San Diego superhero and a central figure in the film. He told me, “Genovese is an icon. There’s a lot of Kitty Genovese’s out there, and whether male or female, young or old, I see this happening all the time. It gets us fired up and outraged.” A mentor for youth and would-be Superheroeshe explains, “We want to show young people an alternative to gangs, drugs and the criminal life. Saving a life is the most rewarding part of being a real life superhero. And inspiring people.”

The 35-year-old activist and founder of The Xtreme Justice League, who has a working relationship with police, was recently recognized as a key tool in the capture of the Chula Vista Groper – a man who for five years groped and possibly sexually assaulted women in the area. San Diego Deputy Mayor Rudy Ramirez commended Mr. Xtreme’s help in spreading public awareness. Ramirez said, “The work that Mr. Xtreme has done with posting the fliers certainly contributed to…the capture of the Chula Vista Groper.”

While some dismiss these Superheroes as just outfitted danger seekers, the truth is, many are soldiers for the homeless population in their neighborhood. “Zeta Kits” – Ziplock bags filled with twenty-dollars worth of ‘must-haves’ like deodorant, socks, toilet paper and lip balm, are purchased out of pocket, and passed out by Portland power couple Zetaman and Apocalypse Meow. Irony beware, during Comic-Con, while caped wannabe’s paraded their latest and greatest, winning awards and recognition, the humble RLSH population banded together on the streets in shady intersections, helping the down and out improve their luck.

Filmmaker Barnett and I continued our tete`-a-tete´ well past the first drink, adventuring about the technical and philosophical facets to life as a superhero. Listen in.

Darrah de jour: Let’s start with a technical question. What type of camera did you use?

Michael Barnett: Canon 5D mark II.

Ddj: Do you think that your film has resulted in an upsurge of real life Superheroes?

MB: Definitely. Mr. Xtreme of the Xtreme Justice League in the beginning of our film was an army of one. Now, I think there’s fifteen in his unit in San Diego and they’ve opened a branch in Oregon.

Ddj: Are there any international Superheroes?

MB: There are a ton of international Superheroes. They’re all over.

Ddj: I noticed that a lot of Superheroes in the film had a traumatic upbringing or events that turned them into crime fighters as opposed to being criminals themselves. What are your thoughts on that?

MB: I think it’s an astute observation. I don’t often make generalizations about this community because each person does it for their own reasons and they do it in their own way. But the one thing I really did discover is that by and large – not every one of them – but a large percentage, had some tragedy or trauma happen to them and it’s now manifesting itself as a need to do good for others.

Ddj: One of the Superheroes mentioned that he traded in alcohol for fighting crime. Do you think that a lot of these guys are adrenaline junkies?

MB: Some of them are adrenaline junkies, some of them abide by the law, some of them are fearful in their approach. Some of them really are in it to have a physical encounter with other people.

Ddj: Stan Lee is in the film, and he mentions that none of them have actual superhero powers and that they are putting themselves in danger. What do you think is the greatest danger they are encountering at night on patrols?

MB: These guys patrol in terrible neighborhoods. And America is hurting right now. It’s a tough time for this country. There are very dangerous places all over this country, in every city, and these guys go right to the epicenter of the worst parts of their communities. So it’s not the safest job in the world.

Ddj: Is there any level of in-fighting or politics in the group?

MB: There is. These guys do this because they’re really fed up. They’re fed up with bureaucracy and society status quo and they’re looking for a way to make grassroots change. And in the end there’s no rulebook or manifesto, so they’re trying to make their own rules as they go and they don’t always agree with each other about what those rules should be.

Ddj: A lot of them had handmade weapons. I have a list: a flashlight that doubles as a stun gun, or a 16” baton Amazonia had, a ring of Pharaoh’s fire, bear mace and a sonic grenade. Which weapon was your favorite?

MB: My favorite weapon was Master Legend’s Iron Fist. It can do incredible amounts of damage. It could be a cautionary tale and I think it will be in the near future with one of them getting hurt in a situation.

Ddj: Dark Guardian had a very protective costume. Who do you think had the most appropriate costume for crime fighting?

MB: Master Legend had a costume like a tank, a bullet proof vest, helmet, boots.

Ddj: The animation in the film made you feel like you were watching a comic book. Who did the animation?

MB: We wanted every character to have their own very distinct look. Mr. Xtreme felt very indie comic, very Ghost World. So we hired Jeremy Arambulo. New York Initiative felt very dark and sharp, so we got the well known Rev. Dave Johnson to do that. Master Legend – the art there was so beautiful. That was Andy Suriano. Captain Sticky was very retro. So we went with an old school comic book artist, Richard Pose. They drew the panels and then we handed them to Syd Garon who brought it all to life. I think fanboys will specifically respond to this film.

Ddj: I really appreciated the fact that there were multiple ethnicities reflected as well as women who are RLSH. You introduced Stan Lee talking about a comic book where a female protagonist was running in heels and he thought that her legs looked good in heels, but that wedgies would be more realistic. Was there any subliminal feminism or commentary in why you entered with that?

MB: I just thought it was very funny. Women are drawn in comics so specifically. I had fantasized as a kid about so many women in comics. Rogue from X-Men. Stan’s 90 years old and I thought it was great that he’s still so aware. I thought it was perceptive and nostalgic. He knows his audience.

Ddj: Mr. Xtreme’s family wasn’t extremely supportive of his life choice to be a RLSH. If you were a parent, how would you feel about your child being one?

MB: It would be a mixed bag. I would do everything I could to get them trained properly.

Ddj: The New York Initiative used “baiting” as a tactic during night patrols. What are your thoughts on having a flamboyant, gay character like Zimmer played to trap a homophobe? Do you think it’s ethical?

MB: It’s hard to be present for crime. The police deter crime and solve crime after it happens. Very rarely are they there for crime. You have a team of very young, ambitious, intelligent, motivated RLSH in the NYI and they don’t want to sit around and wait for crime. They want to root out criminality in a courageous way, that’s rarely been done. It was super unsafe and terrifying to shoot. They’re risking their lives.

Ddj: If you could have any superpower what would it be?

MB: The power to stop time.

Superheroesthe movie is playing on HBO and in select theatres nationwide. It’s also available on DVD. For more info visit: www.SuperheroesTheMovie.com

***
Post-feminist sex and sensuality expert Darrah de jour is a freelance journalist who lives in LA with her dog Oscar Wilde. Her writing has appeared in Marie Claire, Esquire and W. In her Red, White and Femme: Strapped With A Brain - And A Vagina columns for SuicideGirls, Darrah will be taking a fresh look at females in America. Hear her being interviewed about female sexuality on the WingGirlMethod.com, visit her blog at Darrahdejour.com/srblog, and find her on Facebook.



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by Damon Martin

Finding humor and easy to understand facts as an atheist isn't always an easy thing to do.

Being an atheist myself, I'm always searching out new ways to help people understand science, as well as why I reject faith and religion as a whole. Sometimes it involves long conversations over several hours, other times it's watching a film like Bill Maher's Religulous.

More often than not however it's the suggestion for that friend, co-worker or acquaintance to read a book that I've devoured in the hopes that they will find something interesting or intriguing to capture their attention within it. Normally, I tell them to read the Bible cover to cover and they are almost assured to become an atheist, but that's a conversation for another day.

Two such books have been released recently. One will make you laugh, but also question things like faith and religion. The other is a fantastic exploration of science triumphing over myth that could be used as a text book for any middle school.



Penn Jillette, the talking half of the famous magician duo Penn and Teller, released a book in late summer titled God No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales in which he presents his version of the ten atheist commandments.

The book was actually inspired by noted conservative and Mormon Glenn Beck who suggested while interviewing Penn once that atheists should have their own commandments to live by, much like those in the Bible that Christians claim to follow on a daily basis.

Penn explores his commandments with a slew of personal stories and encounters, while going right for the jugular with subjects like atheists vs. agnostics (the chapter is entitled “Agnostics: No One Can Know For Sure But I Believe They're Full of Shit”).

His stories are told in a way that will definitely keep you laughing, but much like his atheist brethren Ricky Gervais, when Penn gets serious and wants to make a point, his writing is crisp, striking and well thought out.

God No! is a great introduction for anybody wanting to learn more about morality in the atheist world, while also finding humor in everyday situations that many atheists will encounter or in Penn's case have encountered.



While Penn's book is more of a straight forward slap in the face with reality about being an atheist, famed biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins' new book The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True is a spellbinding narrative of the wondrous world of science and how it compares to the myths that seemingly capture our attention as youths.

The book is aimed at children ages 12 and up, and really could be a science manual for kids who are intrigued by science and how things work.

Dawkins along with illustrator Dave McKean weave a beautiful scientific picture of the world while explaining things like where a rainbow comes from, why there are so many different animals, and who the first man was. The questions and myths are laid out and Dawkins sets out to not only disprove them, but explain how science works to give answers that are just as mystifying and amazing.

Dawkins takes the myths and tales that we all learned as children and debunks them in a way that not only makes sense, but makes things fit together like a puzzle.

Throughout the book, Dawkins even admits there are some things he doesn't know the answer to, but unlike myths and religion, he admits to it and doesn't try to come up with a story to fill in the gaps in his knowledge.

The Magic of Reality is a book that can be taught to children, but many adults will find just as enthralling. There is also an iPad version of the book (which I purchased), which is a fantastic way to read the text and watch the illustrations come to life.

With either book, God No! by Penn Jillette or The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins, science and atheism are explored, examined and explained in some form or fashion. Both books are well-written, well thought out and a great addition to a library.

Even if you're not an atheist, everyone can learn something from Dawkins and Penn.





by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World...

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see parts ONE, TWO, and THREE – then continue reading after the jump…)



[THE KILLSWITCH REVIEW – CHAPTER ONE, PART FOUR]


[BLACK BUTTONS, INC. ] 

[Previous Chapter / Next Chapter]


Tanner gave them the high sign when they got back to BBI, and reminded Haggerty that a staff report was due upstairs. Haggerty looked at the clock and nodded, keying in his pass code to the mausoleum. The meeting was due to start momentarily. He didn’t really have time for his planned detour to the men’s room to dose a celtrex; lateness was something that was sure to have the Dragon breathing fire at him. Then again, a man about to press didn’t have much to fear from those flames. The meeting could start without him. Haggerty stepped forward, allowing the scanner to pan his retinas, and waited as four sets of interlocking gates disengaged and slid back into the floor and ceiling, revealing a permaglass wall with one narrow concave section forming an access port. Once the hypersteel gates had disappeared, Haggerty glanced back at the control panel, stamping his thumbprint against the flatscreen to turn off the remaining electronic wards, before pulling on the pair of black duratex gloves Elsa handed him. When the system sent the green light clearing him for access, Haggerty took the minthizine cases and biohazard bag from her and stood on the pressure plate in front of the access port. There was just enough room for one person to stand within its circumference. Once in place, the concavity slid open around the access port, effectively bringing Haggerty inside the room while ensuring no one else entered with him. The shield’s permaglass construction ensured that his actions would be observable by any duly assigned witnesses. Originally, two were mandated, usually the on-duty dispatcher, the reviewer’s assistant, or another reviewer. These days, little actual observation was ever done. Tanner didn’t even bother to turn his attention from his own console, though Elsa managed to keep Haggerty in her line of sight even as she headed over to a nearby decontamination sink to wash her hands and run the requisite sterilization protocols on her internal systems.

The discharged KV unit storage room was the highest security area in the building; only state-registered review agents could enter. Somewhere in this same facility a similar room held thousands of brand-new, uncalibrated units — Haggerty had been there once, his first day on the job, when he’d signed for his own — boxes without namescreens housing buttons without printscans. But the mausoleum, with its stone floor and vaulted ceilings, held only discharged black boxes: row after row and shelf after shelf of dead units. T. J. Sovereign, the man who’d designed the first box, had suggested they be recycled. This was quickly vetoed on the grounds that no one wanted a device that had been discharged. In order for it to be safe and unthreatening, it had to be clean, untarnished, sterile — and unique.

Haggerty stepped to the console, uttered the command, and waited for the program to identify his vocal pattern. A few seconds later, a pair of narrow panels slid aside, revealing freshly sterilized containment slots. He deposited the units within — evidence in the unlikely event of future challenge — and watched as the panels automatically sealed shut. Most likely, those seals would never be broken, the units’ evidence never required.

Haggerty headed for the exit sink and coded open the appropriate secure waste container beside it. He dropped the biohazard bag inside, stripped off his gloves and sent them after, then coded the container closed. Though the minthizine cases and duratex gloves made it virtually impossible for him to have picked up a single spore of contamination, he followed protocol, washing his hands once more, then returned to the access port to leave the mausoleum. He stepped from the pressure plate and the mausoleum’s four pairs of gates closed behind him for the last time.

Elsa sat at a console, sorting through data streams. She smiled at him as he made his way out of the storage room.

“I have a staff meeting,” he said.

“I’ll keep myself busy,” she replied.

* * *

“Welcome, Mr. Haggerty,” said Consuela Pitcairn, the division director, referred to in whispers as the Dragon. The sole person at the table not wearing grays, she was dressed in a stylish business suit of pale gold that featured an elegant straight skirt ending demurely at the knee, over a cream-colored synthesilk blouse. She had been with BBI since before Haggerty, and had to be nearing the century mark, but like almost every one else looked no older than thirty. Right now, she also looked annoyed.

Haggerty didn’t bother trying to excuse his lateness. He headed for the only seat available at the large round black onyx table, between Tanner and O’Connell, directly across from the new kid, Corbin, who was chewing one of her irritating cubes of gum. She had been recruited two months ago, after the union complained that three retired agents’ positions had gone unfilled far beyond contractual time limits. Management had successfully argued that there wasn’t enough work for three new agents, but the arbitrator upheld the union’s position that the contract required that at least one job be filled. Thus BBI acquired Corbin to take up the nonexistent slack and Consuela acquired a devoutly loyal agent. Because Corbin was the minimum legal employable age, thirty. This made her two decades younger than the national average for initial employment in any job, let alone this highly sought-after field. No doubt Corbin’s loyalty was also due to the fact that the field still skewed heavily toward the male demographic.

Corbin had smooth, clear skin, short dark hair, and piercing blue eyes Haggerty figured were natural. Like every other Conscientious Citizen, she was good-looking — most would probably say beautiful. But something about her left Haggerty slightly repulsed. She was smart-mouthed, certain she knew more than the experienced agents, much like Haggerty when he first joined BBI. But Corbin was hard, smug, unlikable. Her not so subtle hints that BBI would be better off if she were to take over Haggerty’s position didn’t help to foster a good working relationship, either. Haggerty’s biggest gripe was that Corbin acted as if she were doing everyone a favor by being there, that she was just killing time until something more worthy of her talents came along. Even at his most callow, Haggerty had never done that. Corbin was clearly unhappy about having to attend this meeting, her eyes darting from one object to the next; she was barely able to sit still.

“Clean presses, I assume?” Consuela said as Haggerty took his seat.

He nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s get started then. Most of you know that pressage is markedly down these past few months, following a pattern that’s been growing for several years.” She smiled provocatively. “Which means some of you may be advantageously positioned for early retirement.”

Haggerty could feel Corbin’s too-blue eyes burn into his flesh. That meant Haggerty’s name was probably on the list. In most industries, the youngest employees were the first to be cut during lean times, but like the police, BBI agents suffered high burnout rates, which worked in favor of younger colleagues. No matter. She could have his job tomorrow.

“With full pension and continued benefits, of course,” Consuela went on. “BBI doesn’t forget its own.”

Tanner leaned in to whisper, “We’d benefit more from her early retirement.”

“Fat chance,” O’Connell whispered back, past Haggerty.

“I realize you’re all in perfect physical condition,” Consuela said calmly, attributing the murmuring to a mix of excitement and apprehension about her news, “but I’m calling for psychevals on each of you later this afternoon. You’ll go down alphabetically.”

“So sayeth the Dragon,” Tanner echoed, loud enough for Haggerty to overhear. Corbin’s eyes continued to target him. Haggerty gave her a thin smile. Relax, kid, you won’t have to wait much longer for my post.

“Are there any questions? Gupta?” Raj Gupta, the only person with more seniority than Haggerty, shook his head no. “O’Connell?” Another head shake. “What about you, Haggerty?”

“Nothing immediate comes to mind,” he said, leaning back in his chair and scratching his neck. “I’ll digest what you’ve told us. Maybe later I’ll have questions.”

Corbin’s eyes narrowed slightly. Was Haggerty willing to fade away quietly, without a fuss? He smiled at her, amused when she scowled back. He was tempted to make up something, just to yank Corbin’s chain, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

No one else had questions. The rest of the meeting was routine reporting of clean presses by mature clients — mature being defined as having reached the century mark.

An hour later, Haggerty found himself in a chair under psycheval by someone who probably knew more about him than any test could ever reveal. But conducting the evaluation was part of his job, and Haggerty knew that Doug Zabrowski never slacked off. Though that didn’t mean he liked running evaluations on his friends. His incessantly puffing on a cigalite was a clear sign he was distressed. Doug only smoked when something was bothering him.

“In my day, those things would have done serious damage to your lungs, Doug,” Haggerty said.

“In your day, anyone taking the equivalent of what you take in celtrex would be on suspension until he’d completed a detox program,” Doug retorted.

Doug Zabrowski was living proof that there was only so much plastiche could achieve. He was as good-looking as everyone else, and every bit as youthful, but there was something worn about him, something tired and solemn that caused him to close in on himself, pinching his attractive features and making them ever so slightly less so. The smoking, at least in Haggerty’s opinion, didn’t help, a fact of which he’d tried to warn his friend, off and on for the past fifty years.

Doug saw it differently. “Cigalites are safe enough for a baby, Jason, and you know it,” he said, fiddling with his setup programs.

He was right, of course. Tobacco had been detoxified decades ago, its natural poisons genetically engineered out of existence. And even had they not been, Haggerty understood that the lungs of a fully geno-immunized body could easily tolerate the abuse, and the annual stem-cell therapy all Conscientious Citizens underwent would repair any tissue damage. In the rare instance where deterioration occurred, there was always the option of having an afflicted organ regrown. No one found smoking offensive these days, whereas Haggerty’s prescription for celtrex had raised the eyebrow of his pharmacist on more than one occasion — which struck Haggerty as exceedingly unfair.

“It’s not as if I’m dosing on something recreational,” he said, unpleasant images of Tanner at his worst coming to mind. “Everyone who’s had stem therapy takes celtrex.”

“Not in the doses you use,” Doug said. “It’s meant as a telemor maintenance drug, not a sedative.”

“I don’t use it as a sedative,” Haggerty protested. “If anything, just the opposite. It clears my mind, helps me focus, stay keen. It takes the edge off.”

“Listen to yourself,” Doug said as he adjusted dials with perhaps a shade more vigor than required. “If something is taking the edge off, by definition it’s making you less keen, not more so. You think you’re focusing and clearing your mind, but what you’re really doing is pacifying yourself. Your mind doesn’t clear, it becomes dull, latching on to the first solution that presents itself and clinging to it, whether it’s the best solution or not.”

“It helps me get the job done,” Haggerty persisted.

“Really? Look, Jason, the fact is we’re not designed to live forever. The things we do to ourselves, to extend our lives beyond what our healthiest ancestors could ever have dreamed of, aren’t natural. Our bodies know that, try as we might to fool them.”

“You’ve lost me,” Haggerty said.

“I may have lost myself,” Doug said ruefully. “What I’m getting at is, your reaction to celtrex, the way you’re abusing it — ” He held up a hand to stop Haggerty’s protest. “I think your body may be resisting the artificial attempt to make it live longer. Your need for celtrex may be tied to an instinct to die, to make room for the next generation, continue the life of the species rather than the life of the individual.”

Haggerty had never heard this particular theory before.

“You think celtrex is making me suicidal?”

“I think maybe it’s exacerbating something in the telemor treatments that your body is rebelling against.”

“Is that possible?” Haggerty asked.

“Oh, Jason, my friend,” Doug smirked. “The more science learns about the body and the brain, the more we realize we don’t know.”

Doug grunted satisfaction as the last setup program flashed ready. He threw a switch. An inkblot engulfed the room.

“Tell me what you see in this image.”

Haggerty got up and walked around the black, flowing globules.

“This part looks like an old steamship,” he observed. “Those globs look like buoys. The centerpiece seems like a giant spider, spinning . . .”

Haggerty knew each word was being recorded, analyzed by patterns of semantics and symbol, each syllable and pause and inflection compared to the dozen other times he’d taken this test. There was no way to cheat. The machine would detect that he was stressed. It might even factor in the significance this date held for him. The results would get sent upstairs; he’d never see them.

Apparently, some results didn’t take long to analyze. Haggerty watched with interest as Doug consulted his screen and sat back.

“Anything interesting?”

“Nothing I hadn’t already figured out,” Doug said. “But I had hoped . . .”

“What’s the bad news, Doc?” Not that it mattered. Haggerty wondered if Doug knew. Maybe that was why he’d invited Haggerty to dinner this evening with himself and Mandy, remembering the anniversary, figuring he’d help Haggerty get through the day. But Haggerty had declined the invitation, and Doug was enough of a friend to understand that some things couldn’t be helped — and enough of a friend to dislike his own helplessness.

“You know what the bad news is,” Doug said quietly. “I could see it in your eyes when you turned me down for dinner. You used to beg me to invite you over for Mandy’s famous cream cheese cakes.”

“Doug. . . .”

“That isn’t all,” he went on brusquely. “The other bit of bad news the analysis has come up with . . .” He looked at the reading again, and Haggerty was surprised to see a smile break out on his face. “Well, maybe it isn’t bad news, although I’m sure you’ll consider it a disaster.”

“What is it?” Haggerty said sourly.

“Your response arc to the celtrex is baseline lethargic.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that your body is no longer responding to the higher dosage. You’d get the same therapeutic effect, as far as telemor maintenance properties go, from a smaller dose.”

Haggerty frowned. It didn’t matter a damn. But the surest way to rouse Doug’s suspicions and subject himself to a well-meaning, futile attempt at intervention was to let this go without protest.

“That can’t be right, Doug,” he said, making the argument he would have made had he not intended to press. “I feel the difference with the higher dose. I don’t know why the analysis says it isn’t working. I guarantee that it is.”

“Jason, old boy, you are in no condition to guarantee a damned thing. Not according to these readings. Trust me on this.” Doug was clearly enjoying himself. “The higher dose isn’t helping. It might even be making things worse. I’m decreasing your dosage of celtrex.”

Haggerty shook his head. When he recorded his press tonight, he’d have to remember to include an apology to Doug. “Trying to counter my instinct to die?” he said, knowing that in his case, the instinct was too deeply ingrained to be negated.

Doug didn’t know that, though. He flashed Haggerty a wicked grin.

“God, I hope so.”

* * *

Excerpt from The Killswitch Review, published by Yard Dog Press. Copyright 2011 Steven-Elliot Altman.

Steven-Elliot Altman is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and videogame developer. He won multiple awards for his online role playing game, 9Dragons. His novels include Captain America is Dead, Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires, Batman: Fear Itself, Batman: Infinite Mirror, The Killswitch Review, The Irregulars, and Deprivers. His writing has been compared to that of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick, and he has collaborated with world class writers such as Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Harry Turtledove and Dr. Janet Asimov. He’s also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Touch, and a contributor to Shadows Over Baker Street, a Hugo Award winning anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories.

Steven also bares ink on his body, and is bi, as in bi-coastal, between NYC and LA. He’s currently hard at work writing and directing his latest videogame Cursed Love, an online free to play gothic horror RPG from Dark Hermit Studios, set in Victorian London. Think Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper and Dorian Gray mercilessly exploit the cast of Twilight. Friend Cursed Love (Official Closed Beta) on facebook and you can have fun playing out this tawdry, tragic romance with Steven while the game is being beta tested!

Diane DeKelb-Rittehouse spent several years in Manhattan as an actress before marrying her college sweetheart and returning to the Philadelphia area where she had been born. Diane first worked with Steven-Elliot Altman when they created the acclaimed, Publisher’s Weekly Starred-Review anthology The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium, in which her story “Gifted” appeared. Diane has published a number of critically acclaimed short stories, most notably in the science fiction, murder, and horror genres. Her young adult fantasy novel, Fareie Rings: The Book of Forests, is now available in stores or online.

Interested in buying a printed copy of The Killswitch Review? Well, Steve’s publisher Yard Dog Press was kind enough to put up a special page where SuicideGirls can get a special discount and watch a sexy trailer. Just follow this link to KillswitchReview.com and click on the SG logo.

* * *Related Posts:
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One, Part Two
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One, Part Three

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World...

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see parts ONE and TWO – then continue reading after the jump…)



[THE KILLSWITCH REVIEW – CHAPTER ONE, PART THREE]

[BLACK BUTTONS, INC. ]

[<- Next Chapter / Previous Chapter -> ]

“Haggerty, where ya’ been?” Tanner grumbled as they entered the viewing room, looking up from his breakfast. “Diddling your assistant? We had a double press over an hour ago.”

Elsa took a seat at the main switchboard and began downloading data, ignoring Tanner’s comment. Haggerty envied her ability to remain unmoved. After decades of ignoring it himself, he’d lately found Tanner’s habitual, juvenile crudeness unbearably irritating.

If Jason Haggerty tried to live up to the ideal of what a Conscientious Citizen should be, Mitch Tanner seemed intent on living down to the worst excesses associated with the status. Haggerty didn’t like Tanner, finding in him the extreme example of everything that was wrong with the majority of people who’d been CCs for more than two decades. He dosed too much in his off time, bitched too much when he was on, and had been campaigning to get Elsa into bed almost from the moment she’d become Haggerty’s assistant. He also went in for plastiche to the point of absurdity. Nobody went much past thirty without at least one visit to the best plastiche parlor he or she could afford, but Tanner chose to look like a JC rather than an adult, and acted like he was no older than he looked. He was ninety-two playing at twenty-two, and not very convincingly. But whatever Haggerty thought of Tanner’s perpetual adolescence, he had to work with the man, if only for the rest of the day.

A quick look at what Tanner was eating, greasy cubes of cloniform beef from the cafeteria dispensary, was enough to turn Haggerty’s stomach. Some of the grease had made a bid for freedom on its way to Tanner’s mouth, and got as far as his chest; two small dark spots marked his regulation grays, which the self-cleaning fabric would eliminate within half an hour. At the moment, though, they remained revoltingly visible.

“Do you have a clue how they prepare that stuff?” Haggerty asked, indicating the plate of food.

“Nope,” Tanner said. “As long as they’re doing the preparing and not me, I don’t really care.”

“There hasn’t been a live cow on the planet for half a century,” Haggerty pointed out. “What they call meat in that swill was culled from a one-hundredth generation clone, grown in a nutrient tank, packed in fake gelatin, flavored with synthetics, and then saniwaved” — which was the reason Haggerty, despite his love of rare steaks and thick burgers, reluctantly followed a vegetarian diet.

“Jeez, Haggerty,” Tanner said, forking up another mouthful of cloniform beef, “you sound like that Code Six guy who’s supposed to be holed up in the desert someplace. What’s his name? Cody?” Tanner scrunched up his face in concentration. “Bodey? Brody?”

“Tomas Yosif Svoboda,” Elsa supplied.

“Yeah, him,” Tanner said. “The back-to-nature nut.”

Code Six was one of the “blue codes,” police designations for threats to public health and safety that required the intervention of law enforcement officers, in this case designating that the person causing the disturbance appeared to be mentally defective and should be approached with caution. Haggerty dimly remembered headlines from decades ago regarding this man, Svoboda — a physicist who supposedly found God, denounced society and founded a cult of subversives called — what was it — the “Indivisibles?”

Tanner lifted his fork to his mouth and another scrap of breakfast hit his grays, making a third spot bloom on the cloth. Haggerty’s mouth tightened. Like so many others, Tanner didn’t look deeply into the nature of things, or care about anything unless the telemonitor warned him to. Perhaps Tanner’s failure to see below the surface was the reason he was merely a trace and dispatch operator, while Haggerty was a reviewer.

“Who and what?” Haggerty asked now, giving up speculation and turning to the job at hand.

He stepped into the pulpit and powered it on. Elsa’s fingers blurred in motion on the transparent board. Data streamed before Haggerty: holo-reps of both pushers, one male, one female, their lives in coded bytes listing below them.

“The dearly departed,” Tanner quipped. “His name was Gustavo Nyuga, one hundred and four, and she was Maria-Christina Rosenberg, one hundred and thirty.” Tanner smiled nastily. “Guess he liked older women.”

To the eye, they both seemed nubile, ageless. The remark was another of Tanner’s crudities: with people living well into their second century and no one looking much over thirty, age gaps between couples were commonplace. What did a few decades matter when everyone had so many of them to look forward to?

“He was a retired investment banker; she was his client, then boss, and then lover,” Tanner continued.

“When and where?” Haggerty asked, moving into the scaled continuous-update holo-rep of the cityscape.

“Oh-eight forty-two,” Tanner read aloud. “The Hodkins Building.” An amber pinlight fixed on a Southside compartment. Haggerty knew the building; he’d been assigned there on a number of occasions. “Looks like they pressed together. Very sweet,” Tanner said.

Who, what, when, and where duly answered, it was Haggerty’s job to find out the why and make sure it was clean. The how he knew all too well.

“Elsa, code us last rites and warrants and get me a thermos of coffee, won’t you?” he requested as he returned to the pulpit.

* * *

The Southside was thick with buildings, stalk after stalk of hypersteel, plasticine, and permaglass rising in square columns of sandy beige and yellow and tan, as if the desert had merely redistributed itself vertically rather then been swallowed whole by Man. In this desiccated garden, the Hodkins Building was the one notable bloom, an exclusive residence, a superior example of the Karin Li school of architecture that had flourished in the second half of the previous century. The building curved around itself, spiraling upward in a graceful sweep, its permaglass surface gradations of blue, from deepest navy at the base to light aqua that seemed to fade into the sky at the upper reaches. The inside was as elegant as the outside. They entered the tube and Elsa typed the pass code to allow them entry to the floor they needed. As they approached the compartment, Haggerty raised the flashing yellow police tape and they passed beneath. A uniformed officer halted them.

“Sorry folks, this is a press scene.”

The man had to be new on the job, not to distinguish between the gray suits of ordinary citizens and their regulation grays. Haggerty flashed his BBI identiplate and the officer, with an embarrassed apology, waved them on.

The door was ajar. Inside they found a well-dressed man seated calmly on an esplanade couch drinking a glass of blue liquid, maybe KeepAwake. Dark-haired, tanned, handsome in that bourgeois way that plastiche seemed to have made everyone’s birthright, he placed his drink on a coaster on a delicate antique end table and rose to greet them.

“The name’s Primrose,” he said. “Haggerty, right?”

Haggerty reached to shake hands. “You’re the adjuster? Never seen you before.” He’d also never seen anyone who’d chosen to keep his physical appearance at early middle age, though he knew the trend was gaining popularity with some businessmen. Primrose sported a frost of silver at each temple, stark and handsome against his dark hair, and the barest suggestion of lines around his eyes. His athletic build had a hint more solidity than the usual thirty-year-old look. Primrose’s look was distinguished, striking, sophisticated, intended to convey authority and experience — invaluable in an adjuster’s work, Haggerty thought.

“Just got assigned to NewVada,” Primrose said. “Transferred from New York.”

“You must be excited,” Haggerty said.

Primrose appeared confused.

“The game?” Haggerty added.

“Oh, the Superbowl. I won’t be there. I’m not much of a football fan,” Primrose said with a self-deprecating smile. “Don’t appreciate violent sports.”

Haggerty nodded. He had his own reason for not being there, beside the fact that tickets cost a small fortune and were near impossible to come by. He’d shared a love of football with his father, and had painfully let it go in his absence. Pressing the night before the big game would itself be an act of defiance for Haggerty. The fact that NewVada was finally a contender made it all the more ironic.

“Mind showing us the press site?” he asked Primrose.

“This way.”

Primrose’s swaggering walk suggested confidence, another asset in an adjuster. Who wanted to leave their final affairs in the hands of someone who didn’t have absolute faith in what he was doing? But, Haggerty thought, Primrose overdid it a bit. Like Tanner’s love affair with puberty, Primrose’s idealized middle-aged man rang false. From the clothes he wore and the jewelry he affected, Haggerty read Primrose to be not much older than the appearance he maintained, a youngster of fifty or so. Most likely he was an up-and-comer with great prospects but a minimal track record in his field, for which his appearance was calculated to compensate. He couldn’t blame Primrose for trying to gain advantage. Everyone started someplace.

He really is young, Elsa told Haggerty through their link. I can tell.

So can I, Haggerty sent back.

Primrose led them into the bedroom, a healthy-sized chamber nearly eight-by-eight, half the size of Haggerty’s but still indicative of wealth, as were the room’s furnishings. Before he’d pressed, Nyuga had indulged a taste — his or his lover’s — for antiques. Real wool carpets covered the floor; bureaus, end tables, and armoires of genuine wood stood against the walls. There were lighting fixtures on tall, elegant poles with fluted crystal glass bowls to deflect the illumination — torch lamps, Haggerty vaguely recalled, his mother had owned one, inherited from a great-aunt. The bed was not the standard platform but a carved fantasy designed to look like a Russian sleigh from at least three centuries back. The wood was natural, though Haggerty couldn’t say from what kind of tree, and against the dark frame a set of mauve silk bedclothes had been twisted by passion, not slumber, and heaped together like discarded flower petals. Drool-tinged blood was evident on one pillow, urine and fecal stains on the sheets — typical evidence of a press. One KV unit lay half hidden beneath a coverlet; Primrose pointed out the other one on the floor, under the bed.

Haggerty cleared his throat. “Do you have the DCs?”

“Right here,” Primrose said, holding up his com and hitting the recall codes. He withdrew the two strips of plasticine the com disgorged. “Do you have the warrants for the boxes?”

Haggerty nodded, following suit with his own com. The two men exchanged documents that were neatly encoded on plasticine cards. Haggerty scanned the death certificates, observing that they were affixed with the proper coroner’s seals, then asked, “How long since the bodies were removed?”

“Half an hour,” Primrose said. “They took all the necessary samples. The detective, I believe his name was —”

“Woyzeck, I know him,” Haggerty interrupted. “He called it a love-spawned clean double, pending our review.”

“His exact words,” Primrose said.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Haggerty said. “Record on.”

Elsa leaned against the bedroom door, casually smoothing blonde hair from her face and folding her arms. “Recording,” she said.

“Eulogic proceedings for Gustavo Nyuga and Maria-Christina Rosenberg. Jason P. Haggerty, representative for BBI, presiding.”

“Oliver Wendell Primrose, adjusting agent for the insurance firm of Cromwell and Sons, prepared to review,” Primrose added in a more officious tone.

Haggerty went to the bed, pulling on black duratex gloves. “Elsa,” he said, “please note: By the authority vested in me by legal warrant of the State of Nevada, I am taking possession of, and responsibility for, two KV black button units that are, to the best of my judgment, the property of BBI and assumed to be the devices of record assigned to the deceased.”

“So noted,” Elsa responded.

Haggerty picked the first unit off the bed and read out the serial number engraved on the casing, then got down on his knees, retrieved the second unit, and repeated the process.

“Serial numbers confirmed as those registered to the deceased,” Elsa said a few seconds later.

“Units appear fully intact and previously armed,” Haggerty continued. “Tabs popped clearly indicate that both buttons have been pressed.” He tipped the boxes up for Primrose to inspect.

Keeping a safe distance, Primrose eyed the tabs and called, “In my best judgment, I confirm that both buttons appear to have been pressed.”

Post-press, the units were, at least in theory, toxin-free, but Haggerty was careful as he handled them, anyway. BBI protocol required that he not put the theory to the test. He brought them over to Elsa. “Mind closing the curtains?” he said to Primrose, who located the console and dialed them shut.

Elsa stood motionless against the door, waiting for Haggerty to reach her. She gave him a look; he supposed she’d smelled the celtrex lacing the coffee on his breath. As he handed her the first unit, she unfastened the tab at the collar of her jumpsuit and pulled the zipper down to her waist in one smooth motion. Primrose watched with an avidity bordering on the salacious as she pressed her thumb hard against her sternum, snapping open her breastplate and exposing her ported upload center, then deftly inserted the unit.

“Analysis?” he asked.

Elsa was silent a full minute, then, “Serial numbers as previously confirmed. Residue on unit confirmed as a BBI toxin. Prints on unit confirmed as belonging to the registered owner. It is established that this is the device of record for Maria-Christina Rosenberg.”

“Play recording with full room projection,” Haggerty said. “Adjust for the light.”

Behind Elsa’s irises, twin beacons whirred into motion, projecting onto Haggerty’s face. He stepped aside. A duplicate holo-image overlaid the room, with the notable inclusion of Gustavo Nyuga and Maria-Christina Rosenberg nude in bed, KV units in hand. Hers was armed; tears wet her cheeks as the soft male electronic voice announced, “Recording,” and went on to give the date and time. The unit cast a violet light across the couple’s bare skins.

Primrose stood mesmerized, as if this were his first post-press viewing. Haggerty had encountered that sort of prurience before. Some adjusters never got tired of the show; it was almost indecent. It seemed to Haggerty that the final moments of the deceased should be observed solemnly, with respect. He turned his attention back to the review.

Gustavo Nyuga took Maria-Christina in his arms, peering over her shoulder as he armed his unit. “Recording,” it droned, bathing the curve of her back in pale green light.

“Quickly, Gustavo, before I change my mind,” she wept. “I love you forever.”

“God, I love you too,” he said, and pressed. She moaned when she heard his unit pop. Then hers popped as well.

Her unit continued to record as they crumpled against each other onto the pillows, euphoria in their eyes. Their bodies trembled and gave a final spasm as their hearts seized simultaneously. Looking at them, Haggerty wondered if having someone to press with made it better. Was there comfort in being so close to someone that the decision could be made, and acted upon, jointly?

Primrose stood by the bed, so near he looked comically like a participant in the scene, his hand to his mouth as though holding something back. Nausea? Excitement?

Haggerty didn’t want to know. “Judgment,” he called.

Primrose took a breath. “Cromwell and Sons declares the cases of Gustavo Nyuga and Maria-Christina Rosenberg to be legitimate presses, their actions apparently the result of joint bankruptcy and inability to secure future income. As neither Mr. Nyuga nor Ms. Rosenberg has any living relatives or heirs, the settlement of their affairs will be posted to the State.” After, of course, Cromwell and Sons took their cut, Haggerty thought. Certainly there were enough antiques in the bedroom alone to cover the normal fees, dues, and charges such firms exacted for their services, before the client’s creditors and heirs — in this case, the State — got to wrangle over what was left.

Haggerty had listened to Primrose stoically. Properly speaking, they ought to have waited for the second review before signing off on both cases. “In the case of Maria-Christina Rosenberg, death by press judged clean,” Haggerty pronounced. “Stop projection.”

The couple vanished. Elsa removed the unit, and Haggerty took it from her, handing her Nyuga’s, sliding Rosenberg’s into a minthizine case for transport back to headquarters. Elsa had already run the analysis, confirming the second unit as Nyuga’s device of record, and begun uploading his final recording, when Primrose spoke.

“Don’t see any need to play the other recording,” he said, fetching his drink from the end table.

Elsa looked at Haggerty. I don’t understand why adjusters are always so impatient, Jason, she sent across their link. Shall I proceed?

Elsa was right: adjusters never wanted to hang around a press scene once the unit was reviewed. They preferred to have the formalities handled as expeditiously as possible so they could go about the business of securing assets, finalizing arrangements, and determining their percentages. A year ago, Haggerty would have ignored Primrose’s comment and told Elsa to proceed with the projection. Adjusters might not like the additional delays and attrition of assets that accompanied the exceedingly rare finding of a criminally manipulated press, but Haggerty had always been scrupulous in carrying out his duties. As a result, he found those exceedingly rare criminal manipulations a less conscientious reviewer would have missed.

But he was a different man today than he had been a year — a lifetime — before. Fewer and fewer manips had been found over the past few decades. These two clients certainly had reason to press and — unless Governor Benfield had suddenly acquired a passion for torch lamps — no heirs to benefit from hurrying them along their way. What was the point of looking further?

It’s all right, Elsa, Haggerty sent across their link. I think the first projection told us everything we need to know. Aloud, he said, “It’s clear what happened. Record epitaph: Regarding the case of Mr. Gustavo Nyuga, one-hundred-four, and Ms. Maria-Christina Rosenberg, one-hundred-thirty, consecutive presses observed and both judged clean. Eulogic proceedings convened on March eighth, Twenty-one-fifty-six, by BBI senior agent Jason P. Haggerty. Life insurance settlement to be placed in trust to the State.” Formalities taken care of, he gestured for Elsa to return the second unit. “Go ahead and open the curtains,” he told Primrose, and secured the second discharged unit in another minthizine case.

The other man dialed the curtains back open, rubbing his eyes as sunlight flooded the compartment. “Is that all?” he asked Haggerty, pulling out his com and flipping it open to record the BBI agent’s verdict in the appropriate files.

“Yes,” Haggerty said, concealing his distaste for Primrose’s cavalier attitude. “That will be all as far as BBI is concerned.”

Primrose closed the com again and put it away. “Nice working with you, Mr. Haggerty.” He extended his hand, realized Haggerty was still wearing the duratex gloves, and settled for a nod. “Have a good day.”

Primrose left the room.

Haggerty went into the bathroom and ordered the sink, “On, hot.” Elsa helped him out of the gloves, which she put in a minthizine biohazard bag, before they began sterilizing their hands as BBI protocol required once discharged units had been contained.

“Jason, I have a question,” she said, looking up from her cleaning.

He saw that she was addressing his reflection in the mirror, and found it odd. “What’s on your mind?” he said.

“The decision those two people made to press together. It was premeditated, wouldn’t you agree?”

Haggerty nodded.

“Please explain to me why two healthy people, in no apparent jeopardy, would decide that they have had enough of life at precisely the same time.”

Haggerty stopped scrubbing and looked at her reflection, perplexed. They’d worked together a long time, reviewed hundreds of double presses together. Why this question now? He thought about how to summarize, knowing that inevitably his answer would fall short of acceptable to her logic board. He knew Elsa was perpetually reprogramming herself, to better understand the nature of those she served, but this was a difficult query, perhaps important to her development. He selected his words carefully.

“Two people can grow together, share so much together, have such a commonality, that they begin to make decisions as one,” he explained, or hoped he did.

Elsa gazed into the mirror, unblinking. “So if the drive to press is based primarily in despair, I should assume they shared the exact same level of despair?”

Haggerty toweled his hands, aware he was not doing a very good job of explaining. “Sort of,” he said. “Let’s say they were committed to each other and circumstances led one of them to decide that pressing was the right choice. Even though the other may not have been suffering the same level of despair at that moment, the strength of their commitment, coupled with the fear of being separated from each other, the person who is the main reason and purpose for living, compounds the despair.” Haggerty scratched the back of his neck. “That could bring them to a decision to press together.”

“Despair by osmosis,” Elsa stated flatly.

“Something like that. Does this shed any light on the human condition for you?”

“I’m going to digest it,” she said, using one of the phrases Haggerty employed in rare moments of uncertainty — or, more usually, to mask defiance toward his superiors. “I’ll run it parallel against previous input and observe the variable shift.”

Haggerty smiled, ever astonished at her desire to learn, to understand. The bulk of androids produced these days were suited only for the most menial or dangerous work no human wanted to do. Intelligent, intuitive androids like Elsa were few and far between, too expensive to produce in quantity, the jobs they were suited for too badly needed by the burgeoning human population. Haggerty took the extra time and effort with her because she had, in many ways, been raised by him, a standard perk in his department long before the impact of androids in the workforce had become an issue with the unions. Her personality, distinctly machinelike and artificial when she’d arrived to replace the earlier model he’d been assigned, had evolved over time, largely in response to his influence. While she was, perhaps understandably, a little too protective of him and inclined to nag, he was happy to have had a hand in her development.

“You do that,” he said.

* * *

Excerpt from The Killswitch Review, published by Yard Dog Press. Copyright 2011 Steven-Elliot Altman.

Steven-Elliot Altman is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and videogame developer. He won multiple awards for his online role playing game, 9Dragons. His novels include Captain America is Dead, Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires, Batman: Fear Itself, Batman: Infinite Mirror, The Killswitch Review, The Irregulars, and Deprivers. His writing has been compared to that of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick, and he has collaborated with world class writers such as Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Harry Turtledove and Dr. Janet Asimov. He’s also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Touch, and a contributor to Shadows Over Baker Street, a Hugo Award winning anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories.

Steven also bares ink on his body, and is bi, as in bi-coastal, between NYC and LA. He’s currently hard at work writing and directing his latest videogame Cursed Love, an online free to play gothic horror RPG from Dark Hermit Studios, set in Victorian London. Think Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper and Dorian Gray mercilessly exploit the cast of Twilight. Friend Cursed Love (Official Closed Beta) on facebook and you can have fun playing out this tawdry, tragic romance with Steven while the game is being beta tested!

Diane DeKelb-Rittehouse spent several years in Manhattan as an actress before marrying her college sweetheart and returning to the Philadelphia area where she had been born. Diane first worked with Steven-Elliot Altman when they created the acclaimed, Publisher’s Weekly Starred-Review anthology The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium, in which her story “Gifted” appeared. Diane has published a number of critically acclaimed short stories, most notably in the science fiction, murder, and horror genres. Her young adult fantasy novel, Fareie Rings: The Book of Forests, is now available in stores or online.

Interested in buying a printed copy of The Killswitch Review? Well, Steve’s publisher Yard Dog Press was kind enough to put up a special page where SuicideGirls can get a special discount and watch a sexy trailer. Just follow this link to KillswitchReview.com and click on the SG logo.

* * *

Related Posts:
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One, Part Two

by Brad Warner

A few people have responded to my blog by comparing me to this or that teacher and saying those guys are much better because they encourage their followers to help others. One reader advised me to get over myself and, “learn to live for others.” It’s good advice, to be sure. But what exactly does it mean?

One of the complaints often lodged against Zen is that it’s a selfish philosophy and practice. Spiritual teachers of other schools are always talking about how we should give to others, help those in need, lend a hand to our brothers and so on. But when you take a look at Zen literature there’s not a whole lot of that. Oh, Dogen Zenji talks a bit about compassion and sometimes you hear the Metta Sutra, the Buddha’s words on kindness, chanted at Zen temples in America. Although elsewhere in the world this chant is more associated with the Theravada school than with Zen.

Zen, on the other hand, tends to seem self-centered. Rather that hearing a lot about how we should be of service to others, the standard canonical texts of Zen appear to focus on what we need to do to improve our own situation and state of mind. They do sometimes make reference to helping others and saving all beings. But these references are almost always a bit abstract. They say we need to help others, but don’t go very deeply into how that might be done. This focus on the self is ironic considering that Zen is often portrayed as a practice aimed at eradicating the self.

But have you ever glanced up randomly when you’re on an airplane ignoring the flight attendants safety instructions? When they tell you how to use those oxygen masks they say that you should first secure your own mask before helping others. There’s a good reason for this. If the plane is losing oxygen you’re going to be too woozy to be of service to anyone else until you first get your own stuff together. This is the way it is in life as well.



It sounds really sweet when someone tells you that you ought to be selflessly serving those less fortunate than you. It’s a beautiful and highly attractive idea. There’s no better way to make yourself seem really holy than to advocate selflessness. Religious leaders have known for centuries that the best way to cultivate a devoted following who’ll gratefully fill up the collection plate is to spread the word that a truly holy person gives to others until it hurts.

It’s always comforting to be told that the source of the world's troubles is out there, in other people, in our surroundings and circumstances and not in ourselves. Much of what passes for religion these days takes as its underlying unstated assumption and starting point that we ourselves are OK. It’s those other people that need fixing, not us. It’s painful when that assumption is challenged. I understand that because it was painful to me when I first came across the supposedly selfish aspects of Zen.

The underlying problem is the same as the problem with the emergency oxygen masks on airplanes. In our usual condition we are far too woozy to be of much service to anyone else. When our own condition is all messed up our attempts to be helpful are more likely to make things worse than to improve them.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t do anything when we see someone is in trouble. We always have to act from the state we’re in at this moment. It’s our duty to do what we can with what we have.

One of the greatest and most useful lessons I’ve learned from Zen practice is how not to help. Zen teachers are often seen as cold. Lots of times in this practice when you go to your teacher in times of distress, instead of being met with warm hugs and reassuring words you’re given the cold shoulder. You're told to take care of the problem yourself. This seems mean, heartless, even cruel.

But as Shakespeare and Nick Lowe noticed sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind (in the right measure). The best way to be truly helpful is often to leave things be. I used to find this all the time when I worked for Tsuburaya Productions. It was often best to allow a bad scheme to fail and then fix it. Jumping into the fray and try to fix things before they broke often was the worst idea. Because then the same thing just kept happening over and over. People learn best from their own mistakes and learn nothing when you fix things for them.

This is not always easy. We want to help. Our self-image is tied up in being a good person and a good person is a helpful person. It damages our ego when we have to let things be instead of jumping in to fix them. Sometimes the hardest thing you can do is to not be helpful. People resent it. They label you as a bad person. Because they don’t want to have to deal with their own shit, they want someone else to deal with it for them. They want Superman to rush in and save the day after they’ve messed things up.

On the other hand it’s important to be of service, to “learn to live for others.” We are not independent objects. We are part of an intimately connected network of sentient and non-sentient beings that stretches all the way to the end of the universe. We never really live just for ourselves, even when we try to do so. To try and live for yourself just causes pain. Not just to others, but to ourselves as well.

The problem is not whether we should live for others or not. The problem is how we should live for others. If our efforts to help end up doing more harm than good, then we aren’t truly living for others any more than the most selfish cad among us lives for himself. We’re just feeding our own egos, establishing a clearer and more fixed self image as a good person.

It’s important to discover how to truly help. And sometimes that means not helping.

***

Brad is on tour right now and may be in your area. To see where Brad will be speaking next take a look here.

Brad Warner is the author of Sex, Sin and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between as well as Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up! and Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff that you can click here to see.

You can also buy T-shirts and hoodies based on his books, and the new CD by his band Zero Defex now!

***

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Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen: Meditation, Depression and the Sense of Self
Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen: How To Make A Zen Monster
Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen: Living Simply
Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen: I Resent My High School

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our new Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World...

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.



[PROLOGUE]

In the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over all forms of disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. Americans who have been granted Conscientious Citizen status now live healthy, youthful lives well beyond the century mark.

To combat overpopulation and depletion of resources, America has sealed her borders and instituted strict measures of birth and death control. Families are now restricted to one child per couple, and the leading cause of death in the U.S. has become technology-assisted suicide.

BLACK BUTTONS, INC. is the government authority responsible for dispensing Kevorkian units — handheld devices which afford the only legal form of suicide.

An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die.

Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

[THE KILLSWITCH REVIEW – CHAPTER ONE]

[BLACK BUTTONS, INC. ]

[<- Next Chapter]

Haggerty had his finger on the button. The black onyx set in the gunmetal casing felt cool beneath his touch. There were millions of registered buttons just like it, hundreds of millions, in fact. No one knew that better than he did, but this one was his, tailor-made. His name glowed across its base: JASON P. HAGGERTY.

He looked around the living room of his spacious compartment, remembering the pride and excitement with which he had made every acquisition it held. His plasma dome viewscreen cost more than most people made in a decade. The glass-topped bar was stocked with premium liquors, not cheap bar brands. A replitext that could become any book he’d ever read or ever wanted to read rested on an elegant simumarble pedestal. Those were just the most obvious of the niceties of life he had been afforded. He called the outer wall into full transparency mode. It cleared instantly, revealing the cityscape outside: close-packed stalk-like buildings stretching to the blazing blue sky dappled with wisps of clouds above distant snow-capped mountains. That view had been the main reason he chose to live here. All these luxuries, so casually on display, never failed to impress the few friends he kept or the even fewer women he’d brought here since Lorraine had left him. The pain that came with his job had once seemed a small price to pay for such wealth. No longer. The compartment and everything it held was too big, too luxurious. Too empty.

All week long he’d contemplated the act. He planned on pressing around midnight. There was a certain poetry to a midnight press on a Saturday night, a certain feeling of closure, pressing as the week ended, before a new one could start. He’d always been a man who saw things through to the end, no matter how difficult the task. He’d worked to be a true Conscientious Citizen, someone who made a positive contribution to society, who unfailingly honored his commitments, who promptly and thoroughly discharged his obligations, and who brought all his skill and ability to his chosen profession. If he were still that man, he’d be getting into his uniform and preparing for his final shift, making sure that when he pressed, he left no loose ends for someone else to clean up. Instead, his finger was on the button, fifteen hours early.

It would take so little, just a light push, to gain release. Why wait? It was unlikely anything earth-shattering would require his presence at work today. Black Buttons, Inc. could manage without him. Haggerty could barely recall the last time a Kevorkian unit had been tampered with, or a press coerced. These days there were no surprises in the reviews he conducted, rendering them largely a formality. Let his successor deal with the unclosed files in his office. No fortunes would be reversed, no futures altered. The outcome of no case would be affected by his passing.

Nor would any thing outside of work. Or anyone. He had no family left, and most of his friends had drifted away long ago. Only two remained who might regret his passing. Doug, the company doctor, who’d likely be pissed as hell, and Elsa, Haggerty’s personal assistant. He didn’t know how she would react. He wasn’t sure she was capable of comprehending the depth of the loss he’d suffered, or to feel loss herself. Any regrets she had would likely center around not having noticed what he was about to do and not acting to stop him. But Elsa would not wallow in self-recrimination or prolonged grief. Most likely she would pragmatically accept that there was nothing she could do to change things and move on to serve whichever reviewer was next in line for a new assistant. Haggerty had no final words for her or for Doug, nothing that mattered enough to say. All his affairs were in order, and if the only duty left to him was to rubberstamp some paperwork, well, that was one obligation his successor at BBI could discharge.

So easy, he thought. The cool metal drew heat from his finger — that exchange seemed reasonable. He could trade the inertia of routine for the act of pressing, trade the anesthetizing drug of work, duty, and obligation for the anesthetic spray on his thumb, the unfelt injection of tailored toxin that would deaden his pain centers as life drained from his body.

A fine tremor ran through his hands. He sat back, letting go of the unit. He felt old, tired, done.

He reached for his button once more. Just one push, he thought, one tiny exertion of pressure and it would be over — much as his father must have thought a year earlier, Haggerty suspected, as his thumb tensed on the trigger of the registered antique, double-barrel shotgun illegally restored to working order. Haggerty drew a deep breath and flipped the ARM switch.

“Recording,” announced the soft feminine electronic voice he’d selected years ago from a dozen options. “Eighth March, Twenty-one-fifty-six, oh-nine twenty-four.” The pale amber light he’d chosen came on beneath the button.

It was customary to say something. But nothing came to mind—no Forgive me or Not without you or Since I am ruined or Just done it all like he’d seen in so many reviews. So he merely said, “Enough . . . it’s been enough,” wondering who the agency would send to do the post-press, hoping it wasn’t Corbin. The Dragon owed him that much, at least.

A bead of sweat made its way through his hairline and down, stinging, into one eye. The climate control system silently switched on, no doubt registering his rise in body temperature, pumping cool air. His compartment was more alive than he was. Haggerty circled the button with the tip of his middle finger with hesitant tenderness, like a man exploring the nipple of a new lover, certain now. He couldn’t stand to face another day. He stared at his unit, ready to press.

The phone chimed an incoming call.

“Damn it!” he grunted, laughing mirthlessly. “Answer, visual off!” he barked, and disarmed his KV unit.

A small, clear light appeared in the air a few feet in front of him, began spinning fast, acquiring color, depth, texture, expanding outward until a life-size holographic representation of Elsa floated in the center of his living room.

“I’m downstairs, Jason,” she said. “Why is your visual off?”

“I’m naked,” Haggerty lied, stowing his KV unit in the drawer of an end table. “Still interested in seeing me?”

“Do you want me to see you?” she asked with polite disinterest.

Elsa was dressed in regulation BBI grays. The jumpsuit, though neither fashionable nor flattering, did little to hide her physical perfection. When she’d first been assigned to him, Haggerty had been married only fifteen years, and Lorraine had teased him, claiming to be jealous of his beautiful, supportive, fiercely loyal assistant. After all, flesh was flesh, and most reviewers did end up taking their assistants to bed, Haggerty included. But that was before Lorraine, and no matter how adult Elsa looked, she reminded him of a child.

“I thought you might like to ride to work together,” she said. Meaning she had concluded that his behavior over the last few days was worrisome, and she wanted to keep an eye on him.

“Go in without me,” Haggerty said. “I’m debating calling in sick.”

“Are you seriously ill, Jason?” Elsa asked. “What sort of symptoms are you — You’d better let me come up immediately.”

“Wait there, I’ll be down in five,” Haggerty said. He snapped off the connection, glanced at the end table drawer and headed for the master bathroom just off his bedroom. The lights flared awake as he entered. “Cold,” he said, and the basin tap came on.

Haggerty popped open his pillcase and extracted a celtrex. The translucent, faint green gelcap sat in the palm of his hand like a drop of seawater. Sometimes he wished it were more than a drop, wished it were enough to drown his sorrows. He reached into a cabinet for a disposable cup. His hand came into contact with something soft. He frowned, pulled out the unexpected object, then froze, staring down at one of the bejeweled fabric ribbons Lorraine had used to tie back her long black hair. How had this one escaped his notice? He’d thought he got rid of them all. Haggerty lifted the ribbon slowly to his face. It was still there, ever so faint, the scent of jasmine and Lorraine.

He gripped the sink, closed his eyes, got himself enough under control to put the scrap of cloth back into the cabinet and grab for a cup. He filled it with water and swallowed the pill, calming instantly — a psychological reaction; it would be three or four minutes before the drug could do the job it was intended for, if not the job he needed done. He bent over the sink, splashed his face, then stared into the mirror and waited for the celtrex to take effect.

The mirror continued to lie, proclaiming him to be exactly as he had appeared on his thirtieth birthday, sixty years ago. His hair was still dark, his chin still cleft, still the most notable feature in what might be called a boyishly attractive face. Only his gray eyes revealed the truth: Haggerty had seen too damned much, too damned often. His eyes would always be haunted.

It appeared that he would be discharging his final obligations, after all. Maybe he should request that as his epitaph: A Conscientious Citizen to the End. With another mirthless laugh, Haggerty left the bathroom, pulled on his uniform, slid his pillcase into a pocket, grabbed his com from where he’d left it on the nightstand, and headed out for what he decided would be his last day of work.

* * *

Excerpt from The Killswitch Review, published by Yard Dog Press. Copyright 2011 Steven-Elliot Altman.

Steven-Elliot Altman is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and videogame developer. He won multiple awards for his online role playing game, 9Dragons. His novels include Captain America is Dead, Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires, Batman: Fear Itself, Batman: Infinite Mirror, The Killswitch Review, The Irregulars, and Deprivers. His writing has been compared to that of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick, and he has collaborated with world class writers such as Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Harry Turtledove and Dr. Janet Asimov. He’s also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Touch, and a contributor to Shadows Over Baker Street, a Hugo Award winning anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories.

Steven also bares ink on his body, and is bi, as in bi-coastal, between NYC and LA. He’s currently hard at work writing and directing his latest videogame Cursed Love, an online free to play gothic horror RPG from Dark Hermit Studios, set in Victorian London. Think Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper and Dorian Gray mercilessly exploit the cast of Twilight. Friend Cursed Love (Official Closed Beta) on facebook and you can have fun playing out this tawdry, tragic romance with Steven while the game is being beta tested!

Diane DeKelb-Rittehouse spent several years in Manhattan as an actress before marrying her college sweetheart and returning to the Philadelphia area where she had been born. Diane first worked with Steven-Elliot Altman when they created the acclaimed, Publisher’s Weekly Starred-Review anthology The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium, in which her story “Gifted” appeared. Diane has published a number of critically acclaimed short stories, most notably in the science fiction, murder, and horror genres. Her young adult fantasy novel, Fareie Rings: The Book of Forests, is now available in stores or online.

Interested in buying a printed copy of The Killswitch Review? Well, Steve’s publisher Yard Dog Press was kind enough to put up a special page where SuicideGirls can get a special discount and watch a sexy trailer. Just follow this link to KillswitchReview.com and click on the SG logo.

Related Posts:
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One, Part Two
Fiction Friday: The Killswitch Review – Chapter One, Part Three

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the sixteenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a 'special' necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage...However, that was before he got kidnapped twice in one day. The first time by Penelope/Knowledge and Defect of The Alcoholic's Guild, who made him realize the Li-Jun had brainwashed him into compliance, and the second time by the Li-Jun, who were rather upset about the fact he'd just been fraternizing with said Alcoholic's Guild – albeit initially unwillingly. Marco’s punishment for this infraction? He was to be a contestant in The Most Dangerous Game. Having selected his weapon of choice, with a little help from Heather, we join Marco as he prepares for his first bout in the arena - armed with nothing more than a bad case of nerves/abject terror and a seemingly unassuming knife.



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 16

Marco had nothing but the wall clock to look at. He thought about slashing the chairs up with his knife, but figured that was pretty childish. A part of his brain suggested he kill himself before he died in front of billions, but he resisted. Some small survival instinct insisted that he had a tiny chance to make it through this.

He looked at the knife again, taking it from its sheath. It wasn't even pretty; it had no ornate designs or curlicues. It was just a knife. Heather could have been lying, about its extra abilities, of course. He would like to know what the Li-Jun modification was. He thumbed the blade experimentally, testing the edge. It was very sharp, and the skin on his thumb split, just the first few layers of epidermis.

The rough, raw, hormone-fueled anger he'd felt in high school when Peter Garrison had pushed him down, the shame he'd felt as others had laughed, the horror that Joanne Smith had seen it all, and the vow to get even. His left hand tightened around the knife, and every person that slipped into his mind were nothing but slow manikins of vulnerable points to hit.

He gasped and dropped the knife. Heather had been right, it was rage, but why did she give him that? Was he meant to shorten his own life expectancy?

The realization hit him, and he stared, slack jawed, at the wall, as the memories returned.

We are not that dissimilar. We're just going about our paths in a different way.

Was she on his side? Was she working against the Li-Jun in her own covert way? Why hadn't she told him?

He had to believe the Li-Jun had constant surveillance on them, especially since he proved himself not to be trusted. She had to be subtle and only hope he could stop being self-absorbed for a moment to get her meaning.

"Holy shit." He looked at the knife and wondered what he was supposed to do with it. Cut himself? How deep? When?

There was a knock at the door and a House Orange Li-Jun entered, carrying a tray with a teapot on it. "Each of the contestants get a final beverage," he said cheerily. "The Red Granny herself sent this with her compliments."

Marco accepted the tray mutely and the Li-Jun wished him luck and left the room. He put the tray on the floor and looked for a note. There was nothing. He poured himself a cup of tea and inhaled the fragrance. Jasmine, an excellent blend, and one that had always inspired him. He took a sip and became immediately intoxicated with a creative rush. The desire to paint, to draw, to write, had never been stronger.

Why had she done this? Was she trying to confuse him? Marco shook his head, confused. The door opened, another Li-Jun was there, saying it was time.

If she were screwing with him, he'd die for sure out there. If she weren’t, he'd still probably die for sure out there. He needed to hold onto whatever hope he could at this point. He gulped the tea and dropped the mug to shatter on the floor. Then he took the knife and ran it quickly along his palm, too fast to worry about the consequences. He sheathed the knife and slid the bloody hand into his bulky gloves. He took his staff and approached the alien, it taking every ounce of willpower not to bash in its head. Blood roared in his ears. It was time.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 15

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the fifteenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a 'special' necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage...However, that was before he got kidnapped twice in one day. The first time by Penelope/Knowledge and Defect of The Alcoholic's Guild, who made him realize the Li-Jun had brainwashed him into compliance, and the second time by the Li-Jun, who were rather upset about the fact he'd just been fraternizing with said Alcoholic's Guild - albeit initially unwillingly. Marco’s punishment for this infraction was laid out by his 'friend' Heather; He was to be a contestant in The Most Dangerous Game...



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 15

Marco had never been a strong debater. Standing up to Heather had perhaps been the bravest thing he'd ever done. The problem was, he was out of courage, and now met with the knowledge that he could die in two hours.

Oh sure, he had a chance, he could win this thing, but who was he fooling? He hadn't been in a fight since sixth grade when he bumped into Peter Garrison in gym and the bully had decked him, and he'd gone down in a pile of confused, sobbing, elbows and knees. He had no idea how to strategize, or how to fight with a weapon, or how to fight with a weapon in one-sixth of Earth’s gravity.

He wondered about the possibility of getting Heather back to apologize and tell her that he was wrong, to say anything to get out of this.

A cold voice inside him reminded that even if he did get out of it, would that force him underground to join the Guild? Or would it make him a faithful Li-Jun lapdog, determined not to piss them off again? Did he want to work for a group that tossed you in the pit when you made them angry? The xenophobes on Earth were right -- the aliens were about to take over, and there was nothing they could do about it.

He wondered where Knowledge and Spiritual Awakening and the others were. Had they gone back underground? Had they been caught? Did they know he had been caught? He realized he didn't know how much time had passed since Seven had abducted him.

He swallowed. He was quite alone, and about to die. There was no getting around it. He walked numbly to the suits on the wall, each in a different state of environmental protection. One looked like an Earth-type suit that was essentially a suit of armor and a big bubble helmet, the others were lighter versions of the Li-Jun-created suits that were tighter fitting with more subtle features. Marco shied away from the alien-clothes, though, since he didn't know what emotions or stories they'd been imbued with.

That left him with the bulky Earth-suit. He didn't want that either; it didn't allow for a wide range of movement, but he had to choose the lesser of all evils. Not like the suit would make much of a difference out there.

After struggling into the suit and figuring out the different controls, Marco looked around for a weapon. There was none. Great, make the weak artist-boy learn low gravity kung fu during a fight to the death. That ought to cause a good amount of laughter back home.

He sighed in frustration as the door opened, and Heather entered the room again. She carried two things - a long staff and a short knife. What interested him more was that she was in the same suit he'd seen when he watched her fight in weeks ago.

"Staff. Knife. These are your weapons."

"So this is how it's really going to go, huh?" Marco said, his throat dry. "Did the Li-Jun make that knife?"

She focused on him, quickly, her face inscrutable. "When you hold an Li-Jun weapon, it's your opponent who must worry, not you."

Marco took the knife and peered at it. It was a plain, straight knife in a sheath designed to strap around his massively padded thigh. "What does it do?"

"I don't know. That's your handicap. It could cause the opponent to become despondent, or aroused, or lose the will to live. Or it could enrage them and turn them into a killing machine."

"Oh, that's great," Marco said. "And the stick?"

She frowned. "It's a staff, Marco, and one of my personal collection. It's rattan, bendable, and very durable. Like a big pencil."

He collapsed into a chair. "I don't know why you're telling me this, you know I'm going to die out there. Horribly. And like you said, there's nothing I can do about it."

"And does that make you change your mind?"

Marco smiled ruefully. "If you'd asked me that an hour ago, I might have said yes. But life can't be much better than death in this case. Where would I go from here? Best that it ends right now."

She looked at him for a moment, a small smile creasing her face. "It's just as you say, Marco. Good luck out there. I’ve always admired you, you know. I’ve been a gladiator among artists. I never was any good at drawing."

"Heather?" She paused at the door. "Am I going to have to fight you?"

She laughed. "Oh no, Marco. I'm someone else's handicap entirely."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:

Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a 'special' necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage...However, that was before he got kidnapped twice in one day. The first time by Penelope/Knowledge and Defect of The Alcoholic's Guild, who made him realize the Li-Jun had brainwashed him into compliance, and the second time by the Li-Jun, who were rather upset about the fact he'd just been fraternizing with said Alcoholic's Guild - albeit initially unwillingly.



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 14

She was with him when he woke up.

"I'm disappointed in you, Marco. I thought we were close."

Marco rubbed his head and looked around. He was in a room with no windows, slumped into a finely upholstered easy chair. Heather sat in the easy chair opposite him. Along the wall hung various environment suits, some Li-Jun made, some not.

"What did you do to me?" he asked.

"Thirteen was worried about your allegiance when she learned you'd been consorting with the Alcoholics Guild," she said, frowning. "Seven followed you to check out her fears. I defended you, but it was too late."

Marco made a face. "Is who I hang out with also dictated in my contract?"

She was silent. "The Alcoholic's Guild is about to be declared by the Ride Base authority as terrorists."

Marco snorted. "Don't suppose my friends could be grandfathered in, since I knew them before they were terrorists?"

"Why do you take this so lightly, Marco? You're in real trouble. You've already lost your patronage; you could be arrested for consorting with terrorists. The Li-Jun are confused, they think you should be grateful."

"Grateful? For being mind-raped twice without knowing what was going on, grateful for having my emotions manipulated without my consent? God, Heather, they pretty much removed my will. I was their sheep when I wore that necklace that you gave me."

Heather was very still, and Marco remembered uncomfortably the speed she controlled even in the light gravity. "You think they do mind control and are here to hurt us."

"It wasn't real! I'm not a pet or a doll, sitting and smiling when someone wants me to sit and smile. So what if I'm depressive and resentful? If you remove that part of me, that's not making me better. And what are they planning on doing with all the stuff they're sending to Earth? Are they going to control everyone back home? Is everyone going to be their sheep?"

Heather stood and walked over to him slowly. "What if they are? People murder, and rape, and enslave, and do horrible things. My village was massacred when I was a child. I don't want to tell you the things done to me, or the things I was forced to do to survive. If the Li-Jun are here to make us stop living like animals, why shouldn’t we support them in any way possible."

Marco couldn't meet her eyes. "But you're trading one animal for another. You don't want humans to be wolves, so you make them sheep. Is that better?"

She took his face in her hand and forced him to look at her. "Do sheep rape? Do they murder? Do they beat and sell their children? Do they steal from their own kind? Or are they content?"

Marco tried to say something flippant, like, I don't know, I never raised sheep, but he was all too aware of her fingers on his neck. "No," he whispered. "But do they create? Do they experience passion? Do they view the world in myriad ways because of their uniqueness?

She stared into his eyes and smiled at last. "No. They don’t."

He spoke quickly before he could lose his nerve. "What about you? You're talking about these murderers, but how many people have you killed?"

She let his chin go and stared at the suits on the wall. "I am a peacekeeper, I will do what needs to be done to make the world a better place."

"I'm sure your victims in the arena are relieved by your better world."

"Marco. Listen to me. We are not that dissimilar. We're just going about our paths in a different way."

"And what path is that?" Marco asked.

Heather pointed her wrinkled hand at the door. "That path. Outside here is the Lunar environment, and The Most Dangerous Game stadium. The Games start in two hours. You're a contestant."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13

by Darrah de jour

For Part Two of my Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Polyamory series (see Part I with Annie Sprinkle here), I spoke with Tristan Taormino, author of Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. In addition to being the princess of polyamory, Double T is also one of the most coveted safe and kinky sex educators around. She travels all over the nation to spread her sex positive message, and is a huge catalyst in the pleasurable-anal-sex-for-women movement. Yes, there's a movement. (Responsible for bringing the back door to your backyard.) This feminist and erotic guru is not only outspoken, but makes talking about sex almost as fun as doing it! So much so, that she is now directing sex ed vids for Vivid Enterainment!

Grab a beverage, your lover or vibrator and buckle up for this one. It's going to be a mind-blowing ride.



Darrah de jour: You wrote for The Village Voice for 10 years, erected The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women book and empire, and you've edited a ton of Best Lesbian Erotica anthologies. Is there anything you're still curious to try?

Tristan Taormino: Well, if you mean sexually, I believe I have probably done nearly all I've ever wanted to. I mean, in my fifteen years working in the world of sex, I have tried a lot of different things, and I've been on some amazing erotic adventures. I'm not sure there is anything left for me to try, but that doesn't mean I'm not still excited about the work I do. I am still passionate about and inspired by my job.

Ddj: When did your love of anal sex spring up?

TT: I had anal sex for the first time in college with my girlfriend at the time. From the very first time we did it, I was in love. It started with just one finger - which is how it should start for everyone!

Ddj: How soon did you tell your partners you dug it up the butt?

TT: I like to give people as much information as I can as soon as I have it. I'm just a very direct person.

Ddj: In your book Opening Up you make it seem very feasible that couples can have open relationships, while retaining their integrity. Now that you are married (and congrats, btw), do you still plan to flex your polyamorous muscle? If so, what is the number one tool you and your partner use to keep your relationship strong?

TT: My partner and I celebrated ten years together this year; throughout our relationship we have practiced various styles of non-monogamy. Being married doesn't change our fundamental commitment to allowing each other the freedom to explore things with other people. Communication and honesty are fundamental for making it work.

Ddj: What is your favorite part about sex with a man? With a woman?

TT: For me, it's really not about someone's gender or genitals, it's all about the connection and chemistry. I can work with any kind of equipment.

Ddj: What are the high points and pitfalls of polyamory? Can someone go from polyamory to monogamy and vice-versa?

TT: Many of the people I interviewed for my book Opening Up began as monogamous and transitioned to non-monogamy at some point. You can absolutely shift from one to the other (either way) as long as you do it with self-awareness, intention, and communication. The pros of open relationships are honesty, freedom, and the opportunity to fulfill multiple desires and needs. The cons: more people equals more work. If you don't like to talk about your own feelings or the feelings of other people, you probably should not be in an open relationship.

Ddj: Do you think all sex workers are polyamorous by nature or by default?

TT: Not at all. My book began as a 600+ page manuscript, and one of the chapters that had to be cut was devoted entirely to sex workers and non-monogamy. Some sex workers have one partner and consider themselves monogamous because they think of the other stuff they do as work. Others identify as non-monogamous, but what that means to each person is different.

Ddj: What are your top 5 tips for sustaining a poly relationship?

TT: Communication, responsibility, honesty, negotiation, and patience.

Ddj: Is polyamory the cure for infidelity?

TT: No. People can be polyamorous and still cheat, ie. be dishonest or do something they've agreed not to.

Ddj: After reading your blog on OpeningUp.net, where you reposted Cunning Minx's take on Charlie Sheen's potential (though irresponsible) polyamory, I wonder, do you think men are polyamorous by nature, given that their instinct is to sleep with as many women as possible and spread their seed? And do you think married men that cheat are actually poly and either don't know it or don't have the means or proper terms to execute it correctly?

TT: I don't think being monogamous or non-monogamous breaks down so clearly along gender lines. And polyamory is not about sleeping with as many women as possible, it's about having multiple erotic, intimate, significant relationships at the same time. Monogamy can be a viable option for those who choose it consciously and work at it; unfortunately, most people end up monogamous by default, based on what they think they're supposed to do. I wish people could realistically assess their wants, needs, desires, and personalities and choose a relationship style -whether some form of monogamy or consensual non-monogamy - based on self-awareness, honesty, and responsibility. We'd all be much better off if people knew about their options, rather than trying to conform to an unrealistic standard (monogamy), and failing pretty miserably.



Ddj: Can you give us a detailed run-down of what a Tristan Taormino workshops entails?

TT: I would say most of my workshops are in classroom settings and are lecture style or a facilitated discussion. A small percentage of the classes I teach actually include a hands-on demonstration. For the hands-on demos, I arrange a demo bottom in advance [which] is someone who I have already contacted and discussed letting me demonstrate specific techniques on them. So someone will come up to the front of the room, get naked, bend over and I will demonstrate techniques, toys, whatever the topic calls for. In most of my workshops, which aren't hands-on, there is everything from flip charts to power point presentations to anonymous Q&As. I have this one of a kind, hand-made pussy puppet, where I show people the anatomy of pussy and different stimulation techniques. I have had it for a number of years and it has traveled all over the country with me. What I really try to do is give people information and tips as well as de-mystify myths and misinformation. Although sex is almost everywhere in our culture, there are still too many myths about how our bodies work, what is or isn't "normal," and what counts or doesn't count as "sex."

Ddj: Speaking of bending over, you hear from a lot of women (and I've experienced this myself) that anal sex can be painful. Why is this? And what can we do to make it more enjoyable?

TT: Anal sex should not hurt - not even a little. If it hurts, you're doing something wrong. Pain is your body's way of saying, "This is not working for me right now," and we must listen to your bodies. If you ignore your body's warning and continue, then you can hurt yourself. You don't have to "work through the pain" to get to the pleasure. The most common mistake people make - and the number one reason that the receptive partner ends up in pain - is that they rush penetration. With desire, relaxation, communication, and lots of lubrication, anal sex can be not only pain-free but arousing and orgasmic.

Ddj: True. Do you know why the orgasms are so mind-blowing?

TT: Anal sex is enjoyable because of the rich body of nerve endings in the anus. [In addition] during anal penetration, especially in certain positions, many women can experience indirect G-spot stimulation.

Ddj: As you mentioned, there are many myths floating around when it comes to anal sex. Anything from adult diapers to your organs falling out. Can you clear up some of the misinformation?

TT: When done properly, frequent penetration will not lead to a gaping asshole, loose sphincter muscles, or a loss of control over bowel movements. During anal penetration, you're not stretching or tearing the sphincter muscles; you are relaxing them to allow for comfortable penetration. With regular anal sex, you can get in touch with your sphincter and you may find that you actually have better bowel control than you did before.

Ddj: When trying anal sex for the first time, what would you advise couples stick on their shopping list - a bottle of lube or a bottle of Grey Goose?

TT: Lube, lube, lube absolutely! And skip the Grey Goose.

Ddj: You direct instructional videos and reality porn for Vivid Entertainment, with a unique feminist POV. What do you hope will change for individuals and couples by viewing your porn, as opposed to the gonzo, rough stuff you might see on Porn Hub?

TT: I want to educate viewers by showing them how to use lube, warm up (rather than trying to go from 0 to 60 in 1 minute), use sex toys, practice different techniques, and communicate with each other during sex. My sex ed movies show explicit, specific techniques for cunnilingus, fellatio, G-spot stimulation, anal sex, hand jobs, bondage, and lots more. I think it's important to get right in there and show people how it's done. It has a very different vibe from mainstream porn because it's meant to be a teaching tool. Although, I know plenty of folks who also get off on it! And since you bring it up, these porn hub/tube sites are absolutely awful. Much of what is on them is pirated content used without permission. These torrent and tube sites are what is ruining the industry. If you want to support your favorite pornographer, then BUY their DVD or PAY to stream it or download it. If people continue to watch "free" porn, eventually no one will be able to make porn anymore.

Ddj: You directed Sasha Grey in the groundbreaking documentary/vignette hybrid Rough Sex and also did panels with her. What do you think made her stand out as a performer, and also, be able to make the transition into mainstream roles?

TT: The scene I shot with Sasha Grey and Danny Wylde is one of the best I've shot in my career. First, it was a switch scene, where Sasha and Danny go back and forth between being dominant and submissive. It's very rare to see in porn. Everything is so fetishized and rigid that you're supposed to pick one role or the other and stick with it (and more often than not, women are submissive and men are dominant). So it's very unique. Sasha came up with the idea after we talked and she told me that she's a switch in real life and loves to explore both roles, but isn't given the opportunity on camera. Although Danny rarely subs on camera anymore, he used to on Kink.com and he's really willing to push his boundaries and do things other male performers just won't do on camera. I really admire him for it, because I'm sure he gets some shit about it. Everything in the scene happened very organically and we shot it in one take. They had fantastic chemistry and seriously forgot about the cameras. I think Sasha has been able to crossover because she's smart, ambitious, and knows what she wants.

Ddj: You once said in an interview, "As a director, my relationship with a performer is the most important thing. I want the performers to be comfortable and to forget about the camera. I want them to go places they may not have gone before. I want them to reveal personal things. I have to create this environment that they feel safe to do that." This is a huge revelation in an industry that tends to undervalue the opinions and likes or dislikes of its performers -- especially its female ones. You go so far as to interview your stars before taping them (and when I say interview, I don't mean having them dole out a fake age). Do you feel that this type of attitude will create a ripple effect where other directors mirror your on-set respect for performers? If not, what are you going to do when you are the only director left that female stars want to work with?!

TT: Let me first say that there are directors other than me that value their performers and treat them well. I just wish that attitude was universal. The interviews, which are part of all of my movie s- my reality series Chemistry, the vignette series Rough Sex, and my sex ed movies - are a crucial part of my mission and vision. I want performers to have the chance to speak for themselves and share their personalities, opinions, experiences, and wisdom. I want to give viewers an opportunity to get to know them, hear their stories, and get a sense of who they are before they fuck. I think it just makes the sex way more interesting. In the past few years, I've seen more porn directors incorporate interviews into their films more prominently, and I hope the trend continues.

Ddj: What is your relationship with 'ecosexuality' and what does the term 'ecosexual' mean to you?

TT: One piece of ecosexuality is to connect our politics around the environment and our politics around sexuality. For example, there is a movement among some sex product manufacturers to create non-toxic, eco-friendly, sustainable, and organic lubes and toys. I think Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens are at the forefront of the ecosexual movement; they were the first ones to talk about uniting love, sex, and the Earth.

Ddj: What are your goals in the sex industry?

TT: I want to bring my feminist perspective to the sex industry and create a different kind of porn; porn that empowers both the people who make it and those who watch it. I want to challenge many of the dominant ideas and images of mainstream pornography and make films that diversify the representation of women's and men's sexuality, pleasure, fantasy, and orgasm. I want to change the way porn is made and how people perceive it.

Ddj: You work in a largely male-dominated industry. What challenges have you overcome both as a feminist pornographer and as a sex educator in a puritanical America?

TT: As a feminist, I am definitely a minority in the mainstream adult industry, but there are more of us every day. I feel like the feminist porn movement is really gaining momentum and having positive effects on traditional porn. I've been a target for right-wing conservatives and anti-porn feminists, and they continue to talk smack about me. I take it as a compliment that they get so worked up about the work I do; I'm clearly pushing their buttons, so I must be doing something right.

Ddj: How do you stay healthy - body, mind, and spirit?

TT: I study Buddhism and practice meditation, which both help me tremendously. I've been in therapy for most of my adult life. I try hard to balance my life, although I admit I tend to work more than I play. I absolutely love my dogs, they keep me grounded and happy. I need to eat three meals a day and sleep at least 8 hours each night or I'm just a mess.

Ddj: Who are your (s)heroes?

TT: I do have role models, women like Betty Dodson, Nina Hartley, Carol Queen, Candida Royale, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle and others who paved the way for what I and others do today. I look to them when I need advice or support.

Ddj: After the recent hoopla surrounding your appearance at Oregon State University, do you have any regrets about your affiliation with the porn industry?

TT: I am proud of the work I do and the porn I make. I refuse to be shamed for my involvement with pornography, which is what was going on with the Oregon State University scandal.

Ddj: What projects are you working on now?

TT: This summer I'm launching TristanTaormino.com, a new "safe for work" website for folks who can't visit my site Puckerup.com sometimes because it's filtered or blocked. My latest sex education movie for Vivid will be out in July. It's called The Expert Guide to Advanced Anal Sex. I recently directed some educational webisodes for SmittenKittenOnline.com that should debut in August. I have two new books coming out in October: my latest sex education book, The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation from Quiver Books and Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, an anthology I edited for Cleis Press. I'm at work on three other books: an anthology, a sex ed book, and a book of essays. I have a bunch of other projects in development, but they have to remain secret for now!



*Some content reprinted with permission from Babeland.com and The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women 2nd Edition.

Related Posts:
Red, White and Femme: Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Polyamory Part I – With Annie Sprinkle
Red, White and Femme: America is FUGLY
Red, White and Femme: Trusting The Ring of Purity - Faith vs Sex Education
Red, White and Femme Fearless Femme Spotlight: Mia Tyler

***

Darrah de jour is a freelance journalist who lives in LA with her dog Oscar Wilde. Her writing has appeared in Marie Claire, Esquire and W. In her Red, White and Femme: Strapped With A Brain - And A Vagina columns for SuicideGirls, Darrah will be taking a fresh look at females in America. Visit her blog at Darrahdejour.com/srblog and find her on Facebook.

Need another helping of Double T? Follow her on Twitter and friend her on Facebook.

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight. However, humans remain suspicious of the Li-Jun’s emotion-imbued goods, so while their entertainment can be beamed back to earth, a trade embargo prevents anything from being physically imported to the planet.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco hastily jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract. He ultimately accepts the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, and embarks on his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow.

Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it. To this end, he stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. After downing one too many drinks, Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.

While attempting to conceal his inebriation as he sneaks back into House Blue, Marco is caught red handed by his Li-Jun keeper Seven (it was probably his spontaneous vomiting that gave him away). The punishment is a second bout of mind raping/mapping. Afterwards, with his patronage in jeopardy, Heather gives him a special necklace to calm his nerves and promises to plead his case with Thirteen.

The following morning, Heather takes Marco on a behind-the-scenes tour of the secret areas of House Blue where the Li-Jun infuse emotion into art. The Red Granny also reveals that everything created in Mollywood will soon be permitted to be legally imported back to earth. Duly inspired and placated, Marco is allowed to resume his patronage.



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 13

The next week, Marco was kidnapped twice, both in the same day.

He'd spent the time writing and illustrating, mostly in his room, but he remembered he liked his office, too. Heather had shown him more of the Li-Jun imbuing process, fascinating stuff. What had really interested him was when the Li-Jun would imbue emotions within weaponry.

"Once we realized we could imbue emotions into sculpture, we wondered what happened if we put despair into a knife blade," Thirteen had said.

Something had clicked within Marco's head. "The Most Dangerous Game. That's how Heather got that last guy! She didn't kill him, she just made him not want to live, and so he was easy to finish off!"

"Exactly. This can make wars a thing of the past, the ultimate disarm."

Again Marco felt that niggling feeling that something was wrong about this, but he couldn't place it.

The next day went to his office, where Knowledge was waiting for him.

He'd nearly forgotten about her. No, he had forgotten about her. How was that possible? He opened his mouth to greet her, but a bag was thrown over his head and he felt himself lifted. He struggled and flailed, but strong arms threw him into a chair and bound him with rope.

"So it's true then," Knowledge’s voice said. "We suspected but we weren't sure."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Let me go, Penelope."

"It’s Knowledge now, Marco. And we've suspected for months that they were developing mind control. You proved it."

"What? Mind control? Are you insane?" He struggled in his chair again, and then went limp. "What do you want from me?"

The bag was lifted and he recognized the bartender, Defects, from the other evening. The other man was the one with the 12 on his neck; Spiritual Awakenings, the Guild leader.

Marco took a deep breath, letting the calm take over. "Listen, I don’t know what you're talking about. They're not controlling my mind, I'm in full control."

Knowledge crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? Why did you never come back to the bar?"

"I- " Marco stopped. He had promised to return, why hadn't he? He just hadn't thought about it. There'd been no urgency to do so.

He felt fingers at his neck, and he looked up at Spiritual Awakenings, who traced the leather ties of his necklace. "Ah, the necklace. Deceptive; it's not as fancy as their usual stuff."

"Hey, Heather gave that to me," he protested as Spiritual Awakenings took out a knife. Marco winced as the cold knife slid down his neck, but the man sliced through his necklace and removed it, dropping it to the floor as if it were a tapeworm.

Adrenaline flooded Marco and he reeled from the shock of it. "Holy shit, what's going on?"

"Check him for other things," Spiritual Awakening said, handing the knife to Defects. Spiritual Awakenings stepped around to where he faced Marco.

"The Li-Jun started mixing the arts when they encountered humans, and it was amazing,” the small man said. “But at some point they discovered we had nostalgia attached to these senses, and more importantly, they could tap into them as easily as they manipulate our senses. Whereas before they could weave a story into a dress or a song into a cake, now they can put the emotions and memories tied to those senses into things. They can make a song that gives you murderous rage, or a bottle of wine that makes you fall in love. For their own pet humans, they can create a necklace to make you calm and docile like a sheep, never thinking to turn against them."

"But why are they doing this? It's everyone’s dream to get a patronage, why would they need us docile?"

Knowledge grinned without humor. "Marco, honey, you know that the patronage isn't what you hoped it would be. It starts with the artist mapping, and continues with them marking your every movement, denying you alcohol, and other controlling things. You're making a ton of money, but are you doing anything with it?"

Marco frowned. "You didn't answer my question."

"This is why we are worried about the mind control," Spiritual Awakenings said. "They have some plan for the Earth, as the embargo against imported Li-Jun clothing and food was just lifted. Who knows what they're shipping home?"

Marco stared at him. He felt an almost audible click. "They're a peaceful race with no army. This is how they take over."

Spiritual Awakenings nodded. "It's how they enslave."

"So what do we do about it?" Marco asked.

"That's what the Guild is for," Spiritual Awakenings said. "The Li-Jun hate alcohol because it dampens the effects of their influence. If you had a couple of shots, and then put that collar back on, you wouldn't feel its effects."

Marco looked down at the necklace with distaste. Then he looked at Knowledge in a panic. "What do I do now? I won't put it back on, but I can't go back without it."

"We'll make one for you. They may not be able to tell the difference, since they can't feel our nostalgia the same way we do," Spiritual Awakening answered. "Just stay here and work, we'll be back in an hour or so."

"Yeah? And then what?" Marco said, panic flooding him again. He couldn't go back, not now. Did Heather know? Was she in compliance with all this?

"We'll come back with a plan to help you keep your cover. We need you on the inside. Will you work with the Guild?"

Marco nodded. "Looks like I don't have a choice. Although I would likely trust you more if you untied me."
***

The second kidnapping came soon after the Guild had left, with Marco still ruminating on what he had learned, and the kiss on the cheek Knowledge had left him. Marco sat at his desk, peering out over the bright city and didn't hear his office door open. He did feel the strong tentacles planted over his face, holding a rag to his mouth. He struggled, but he knew immediately he'd be no match for Seven of House Blue.

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny – Part 12

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he has received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract.

Having accepted the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, Marco settles into his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow. Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco suffers from a severe case of writers block, and searches for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s actually had something worth drinking in it.

Marco stumbles across an illicit drinking establishment on the seedier side of the moon which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild. There Marco has an uneasy encounter with a glass or three of gin, his ex-GF Penelope, who is now going by the name Knowledge, and her AG sponsor, Defect. However it’s only after downing one too many drinks that Marco begins to get a sense of exactly how severe of an infraction the Li-Jun consider the consumption of alcohol to be.



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 12

Marco stood outside of House Blue, swaying slightly, realizing he faced a problem he hadn't encountered in fifteen years: how to sneak in while hiding the fact that he'd been out drinking. The gum Defects had given him was in his mouth, but he doubted he could hide the fact that he could barely focus, spoke with a slur, and would likely punch that cocky Seven if he came across him.

He was a man now, not a scared fifteen-year old, and he should be allowed to go where he pleased. He took a deep breath and put his hand on the door handle.

It swung inward as he touched it. Seven was there, his eyestalks dipping to look at him. "Marco, so good to see you. Been sampling the human half of Ride Base?" If he’d been human, he would have sounded sarcastic. Marco giggled.

Marco opened his mouth to compliment Seven’s usage of human sarcasm, but instead he bent over and vomited on his own shoes.

Seven had him by the arms and carried him down the hall. "I c'n walk," he said, but his feet wouldn't obey him.

"I'm sure you can, Marco," Thirteen said from behind him, "But this is more efficient. We must do another artist mapping."

Realization trickled down his spine like iced molasses. "What? No, my agent said I wouldn’t have to-"

"A sub-clause in your contract says you will submit to another mapping if you exhibited behavior unlike yourself. Something we perhaps missed in the mapping."

That didn’t make sense, but Marco couldn't remember all the details, and he seemed to be without his phone. And then without his clothes. Seven put him into the coffin-like pod with efficiency, electrodes slapped only to his head this time. Still, he struggled when the fluid filled the pod, banging his fists against the door and yelling. He tried to rip the electrodes off, but the glue was too strong.

The taste of gin filled his mouth again, this time not from vomit but from the memories, now pairing the taste with shame, disorientation, and sick, desperate longing. He'd been lying, of course, to Knowledge, and although he thought he hid it from her well enough, he wasn't able to hide that emotion in a box away from whatever the aliens did to him, and he wailed into the breathing tube.

It didn't take as long as before. When the feelings attached to his current state were depleted, the fluid drained, and the Li-Jun had left the room. Marco was alone, kneeling inside the pod. The doors slowly swung open and the electrodes fell off his head.

The Alcoholics Guild said Li-Jun didn't like humans drinking. "Understatement of the year," he muttered, wiping the goo out of his eyes.

The hot water in the shower lasted five minutes this time. Swearing, Marco left the shower, feeling more sober now, and wrapped the robe around him. He felt immediately calmer, but still confused about the evening. He checked his watch: midnight, GMT. Heather might be asleep, but considering how often she showed up in his room, he didn't feel terribly bad about disturbing her.

She was in her own robe, brewing tea, when she called for him to come in. "Marco, what can I do for you?"

"What's up with the Li-Jun and drinking?"

"They don't do it, if that's what you mean," she said, stirring honey into her tea. "Darjeeling?"

He shook his head, refusing to be distracted. "I know that, but are we completely forbidden to drink? Are they that much against it?"

"Of course they are. You mean no one told you?" she asked.

"No! I never heard this. When I met you, I had a hangover, and you didn't say anything about it!"

"Why? You didn't go out drinking, did you?" Her eyes were wide.

"Well, yeah, I had a hard day of writing and I needed a drink."

She rubbed her forehead. "This is very bad, Marco. Did they catch you?"

Marco indicated his wet hair. "Yeah. I just got out of the hell pod thing. Again. It was unpleasant. Again."

She tapped her fingertip against her mug. "They're not going to be happy with you for a while. If you don't want to lose your patronage, you're going to have to listen to me."

Marco frowned. "Okay..."

She looked him up and down; looking suddenly like a department store shop woman trying to decide what he'd look best in. Then she went to a dresser and pulled out a drawer. "How are you feeling now?" she asked, not turning around as she rummaged.

Marco shrugged. "I don't know. Tired. Annoyed."

"Angry? Irritated? Feel like you might run through a wall and strangle someone?"

"No, none of those, I don't think. I'm pretty calm, I guess."

"Good." She came back with a leather cord in her hand. It was three cords braided together, a white cord, a blue one, and an indigo. "Wear this, at all times, even in the shower," she instructed. "It's a symbol that will show your dedication to House Blue, to everyone."

Marco eyed it. "Are you sure-"

Heather held up her hand. "If you don't want to lose your patronage, do what I say. Take this back to your room, put it on, and go to bed. Tomorrow I'll talk to Thirteen for you. Maybe I’ll get a chance to take you around to the labs."

Marco took the rope from her and felt calm and gratitude relax him. He yawned. "Thanks a lot, Heather. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here to help me find my way."

She smiled, her eyes a little sad. "You'll be fine. Just keep that on. Tomorrow morning I’ll meet you for breakfast."

***

Marco slept deeper and more peacefully than he had in weeks. The necklace bothered him at first-he'd never been much for jewelry-but he quickly got used to it. He woke early, dressed, and walked to the kitchen where one of the Li-Jun was cooking breakfast. He got a plate of pancakes and sat down.

Heather came to join him. "Good morning, I am surprised you're up."

He blinked and yawned. "I just felt like getting up."

She nodded. "I spoke to Thirteen and assured her that no more binges are in your future. Was I right in telling her that?"

Marco swallowed his pancakes. "Oh definitely. I won't be going there anymore. I'm feeling better about my patronage now than ever."

She beamed at him. "That's wonderful. Now finish your breakfast and I'll take you to the artist labs."

He nodded and drank his coffee. When he was done, he followed Heather to an area of the house he'd not seen before, behind a door marked with the Li-Jun's language that consisted mainly of concentric circles.

"Here is where they take what you write and infuse it with other pieces of art," She said. They walked down a hall that opened to a huge room with one wall nothing but windows out to the Lunar landscape. She smiled at him. "They like the inspiration, they say. Now come over here and meet Fifteen and Sixteen."

Two Li-Jun worked at one of several tables. Tendrils of wires snaked out of a red computer case, and they had connected these wires to the seams of a pinstripe suit. Marco and Heather watched as one alien held the garment while the other peered into the computer monitor on the table and typed some adjustments in their keyboard, which had only five circles on it.

"So what are they doing?" he whispered to Heather.

"That short story you wrote, the one about the man who made mechanical plants to occupy his time in prison? Anyone who wears this suit will hear that story," she told him.

He frowned. "How did you know about that?"

"Oh Marco. Your computer is on the network. When you're done with a story or poem or comic, they take it and make something out of it. The cake entitled Penelope was particularly bittersweet; they had done an amazing job matching the love and regret with the sweetness of strawberries and the sour of rhubarb. I wished you could have joined us, but you weren't ready, they said."

Marco normally would have felt embarrassed and violated. No one had ever read that poem about Penelope. Not even Penelope. But now he felt only annoyed. He took Heather's arm and dragged her away from the Li-Jun, who still hadn't acknowledged their presence. "I wrote that two years ago, not while here on the moon. How did they get that?"

Heather leaned in to him; he could smell the Juicy Froot Loops gum on her breath. "They have the rights to all your work, Marco. Didn't you know that?"

He didn't. "But how did they get it?"

"They have an eye on all media. That's how they choose whom to give patronage to. The applications are worthless, Marco, they want to know what a person can really create."

"So they're spying on humans?" Marco said, surprised, but finding that he didn't really care, now that he thought about it. He got his patronage, what did he care how he got it?

“'Spying' is such an ugly word, Marco. That implies it doesn't do us any good. And it's quite beneficial to us, don't you think? Rumor is that you got one of the best patronage deals ever. Even better than mine."

He smiled, irritation evaporating. "So how do they do all this?"

They walked back over to the aliens, who were hanging the suit on a hanger and bringing out a gold necklace with a pendant of a little clockwork bird.

"No one knows, and they either can't, or won't, teach us," she said. She squinted her eyes and said, "Oh, this should be interesting."

Marco looked to where she was focused and saw only concentric circles on the monitor screen. "Can you read their writing?"

"A little," she said. "You get used to it. All I can tell you is instead of a piece of art, they're going to be putting an emotion into this necklace. They are just now experimenting with the stronger senses of nostalgia and emotional memory connected with it. As I said, they have nothing similar to that, so this is experimental."

"What emotion?" he asked?

"I'm not sure," she said.

“Why are they going ahead with research, if they can’t export what they have now on Earth, why make more?”

Heather leaned in again, “You didn’t hear this from me, but the embargo lifts next month. We’re going to be shipping clothing, jewelry, art, even food down the home planet. It finally got enough votes in England, China, the US, and Texlaska. After those biggies, the rest of the world will follow.”

"But doesn't that mean you can do, I don't know, love potions or something? I mean, this is like real beer goggles. Almost like mind-"

Heather slapped a hand over his mouth. “Shh, we’ll disturb them. We need to be quiet.”

Marco stared at her and rubbed his lip, which was swelling slightly from the force of her blow.

"Why are you showing me this?" Marco whispered.

"Because you are part of House Blue," Heather replied. "And House Blue is at the forefront of exporting goods to Earth. They need us for art creation, and for modeling, and for reassuring the people back home that this stuff is perfectly safe."

"Perfectly safe," echoed Marco softly as they watched the aliens work. He rubbed the necklace Heather had given him. It calmed him.

"The goal is to get everyone on Earth accepting Li-Jun art," Heather said.

"Wearing, eating, everything. And when that happens, they can experience the peace we know here on Ride Base."

Marco nodded as the aliens brought a fancy cake to the table and one of them spoke into a microphone, reading from the computer screen. The other end of the microphone wire wasn't plugged into anything, but looked like a small hose that exuded golden light. As the alien whispered, Marco could hear the words come out of the other end and alight on the cake, as delicate as a meringue.

The words sounded familiar to Marco, and pulled up a small ache in his chest, although he didn't know why. Heather watched him carefully, and he smiled slightly at her.

"What's up?" he asked.

She smiled back. "Nothing."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11

by Aaron Colter

There are so many cool things to read online other than my dribble, so please check out all the neat links of stuff I found interesting this week. Next week, I'll write about beer. That'll be fun. You like beer, don't you? Good. Me too.

1. Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man

This feature in the NY Times Magazine is one of the most captivating stories I've read in a long time. The commentary of poverty, globalism, religion, politics, families, and strangers combines into a stunning narrative about the consequences of actions, both big and small. I know, you're going to scroll down to the end of the first page and think, "Holy fuck, ten more pages, I'm not reading this shit." But trust me, read it. Print out the pages and carry them with you for reading while on public transit, or late at night while ignoring the awful bile that's on television, or in the morning while eating breakfast, or in the bathroom while taking a shit - I don't care, just read the damn thing.

2. Ilegal Photo Tour of New Orleans Six Flags

This link is a little older, but maybe you haven't seen it yet. It's a large collection of photos, each worth a thousand or so words, so my writing about them is futile – just take a look.

3. Commission a Sketch for Justice

You probably heard the story about a Texas cheerleader who was kicked off the squad for refusing to specifically cheer for a student who sexually assaulted her only weeks prior. But recently, that young girl lost her case against the school, which she sued for kicking her off the squad. One of the more fucked-up parts of our judicial system is that, sometimes, if you lose a case against someone, you have to pay their legal fees. While this notion is intended to stop frivolous lawsuits (because we all know that's happened), unfortunately it sucker-punches the victim, as in this case, who has little financial resources. So, this teenager is now on the hook for $45,000 in legal fees acquired by the school. One comic artist is commissioning sketches to help pay for those fees. Please donate or order a sketch today.

4. Top 10 Overlooked Bob Dylan Songs

Hey, look, the title says what it is. And, so it is. Written by Douglas Wolk, who is something of a freelance genius here in Portland, and around the country, nay, the world!

5. Transmetropolitan: Around the World - Art Book

Transmetropolitan is quite possibly my favorite comic of all time, and there are so many incredible artists in this book, so the steep $50 price tag is totally worth it, even if the shipping fees aren't included. I wish I had more images to show, but here's an awesome one from Camilla d'Errico that I really love.



That's all for this week, and seriously, read the NY Times feature, it'll change your life. Oh, and here's a bonus link to some free music from Point Juncture, WA.

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the tenth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname "Mollywood." These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who'd unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun's reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he's never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink. Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so Marco settles for an early night

The next day, Marco learns first hand about the process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages. Having had his deepest and most depraved memories dredged and thoroughly probed by the aliens so they can be monitored and recorded, Marco finally sees the terms of his contract.

Having accepted the Li-Jun’s too-good-to-refuse offer, Marco settles into his new life at House Blue. However, though he’s been handed everything he ever wanted, somehow the reality of it is hollow. Twenty thousand words into his new graphic novel, with his first deadline looming, Marco is suffering from a severe case of writers block. Looking for inspiration in the bottom of a glass that’s had something actually worth drinking in it, he heads to the seedier end of the Moon and stumbles across an illicit establishment which turns out to be run by a collective of folks who are strictly persona non grata as far as the Li-Jun are concerned – The Alcoholic's Guild.

Taking a sip of gin, Marco looks up and sees a couple enter the bar. The man catches the attention of most of the establishment’s other patrons, but it’s the woman beside him that Marco can't stop staring at.

"Penelope?"



Marco and the Red Granny - Part 11

“…And it’s ‘Knowledge Of His Will’ Abrams Now,” Penelope said.

Marco was on his fourth drink and finding it hard to focus. “Can I call you ‘Will’ for short?”

She didn’t laugh. “No, people usually call me ‘Knowledge.’”

“What’s with that, anyway? Where do these weird cult names come from?” The bartender, introduced to Marco as Remove All These Defects O’Brien, put another gin in front of him

“Joining the guild isn’t a small matter, Marco,” Penelope-no, wait, Knowledge-said. “The new name we take illustrates our faith in our commitment.”

“Commitment in leaving AA.”

“Exactly. And we mark the point where we left AA for another option with the mark of the step we were on.” She rubbed the 11 on her neck.

Marco shook his head. "But I still don’t get it; I thought no one left their patronage?"

Knowledge poured another glass of wine. "That's what they tell you, Marco. The truth is, there are two ways to get out of the patronage mode. Joining the Guild is the easier way. The Li-Jun hate drunks."

"But didn't they know you drank before they got you up here? Didn't they check that about me?"

"You'd think they would," Knowledge said. "Maybe they thought they could keep us from it. Didn't work with me."

"So what happened with you?" Marco said.

"I came to Ride Base. Signed on with House Magenta. They support most of the chefs. I was so excited, but the artist mapping took a lot out of me."

Marco looked down. "Tell me about it."

"I baked for them for a year or so, but the mapping left a bad taste in my mouth that only wine could kill. I started coming here. When they found out-"

"What?" Marco said, alarmed. "What did they do? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"They said I could go to AA or go to The Most Dangerous Game."

"Shit."

"Yeah. So I went through. Got my chips, got my sponsor, and got to step 11.” She closed her eyes and recited, “’Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.’ Then my sponsor, Spiritual Awakenings McCloud, defected to the Guild, and I went with him."

"So... why did you stop after eleven steps? Isn't that near the end?"

She took a deliberate sip. "It is."

Marco sighed. "So? Why?"

"The twelve step program is an eye-opener. It is designed to expose the truth. Alcohol, in most cases, shrouds the truth. Which is odd, because one finds oneself more honest than ever while under the influence, right?"

She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Marco kept his eyes down. "I guess."

"But too much alcohol could mask the troubles in your life. Most of the time. But in this case-in my case-it made things perfectly clear. And it was clear that I had to leave."

Fighting a wave of bile, Marco pointed to the small man Knowledge had entered the bar with, who stood at the end of the bar with a glass of whisky. "And is that Spiritual Awakenings?"

"It is." Her voice took on a dreamy quality. "He has gone through all twelve steps. Went through the hell and out the other side. And remained the same. He's the highest rank in the guild."

"You have ranks based on your AA steps?"

"Sure. If you have had the strength to go through the entire program and come out the other side changed, but the same, you are truly a master of the Alcoholic’s Guild," she said. "I made it to eleven."

"I see," Marco said.

She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. "To be part of the AG, you have to hit rock bottom, like lying in a puddle of you own vomit in an alley rock bottom. Then you join AA and learn all about the church, and God, and all that. It offers a way out of the alley. Perhaps, at some point, the Guild can show you the back door out. It's not back to the alley and your vomit, but it's not in a church of sobriety, either. It's its own thing."

"But you have a disease," Marco said uncertainly. "You needed help. Now you're drinking again and you've lost your patronage. How can that be good?"

Knowledge poured another glass of wine and sipped it thoughtfully. "You know, Marco, this isn't glamorous. Being a stinking drunk isn't what I wanted to be when I was a little girl. I know what I'm doing to my liver. I know what I'm doing to my brain. You get detailed medical lessons in AA as well as when you join the Guild. But look at it this way: an animal that has its paw stuck in a trap can either sit there and wait for the hunter to come back, or it can gnaw its paw off to get free. So you wonder, what's worse, being in a trap, or forever changed for the worse, but free?"

Marco's eyelids drooped. "Listen, Knowledge, I-"

Knowledge held up her hand, surveying the empty glasses on the table. "I know what you're about to say, Marco. I miss you too, and you have reached the 'I love you, man' stage. Don't say anything you'll regret. We're different people now."

Marco blinked and tried to focus on her. "No, I was going to say I don't know what to do. House Blue doesn't make art. I don't know what they want me for, why they did that rape-your-mind-artist mapping thing to me."

Knowledge sighed, and Marco had that feeling that he'd missed something, had made her angry but she wouldn't tell her how or why. She signaled to Remove All These Defects (“Defects” for short) and said, "It's time for you to go back. All I can tell you is, pay attention, but don't ask too many questions. And come back here for a drink soon. Just don’t let them follow you."

***

Excerpt from the Marco and the Red Granny, published by Restless Brain Media at Smashwords. Copyright 2010 Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcast producer. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the novellas in the Heaven series, the audio drama The Takeover, and many others. She's won the Parsec Award and the Podcast Peer award. Her published works include Playing For Keeps (Swarm), Nanovor: Hacked (Running Press Kids), and Tricks of the Podcasting Masters (Que), not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing and the Angry Robot podcasts, as well as the editor of Escape Pod, the sci-fi audio magazine. Marco and the Red Granny was originally published as the premier podcast serial at Hub Magazine, and is available for Kindle via Amazon.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs. You can find her in the Murverse, at Smashwords and on Twitter.

Catch Up With Marco and the Red Granny:
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 1
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 2
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 3
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 4
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 5
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 6
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 7
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 8
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 9
Fiction Friday: Marco and the Red Granny - Part 10