Talk to Villains - #fridayflash

I never expected to solve more crime as a reporter than as a bulletproof icon. Yet Simon Magus is responsible for more crime in this city and on the planet than any drug runner. He’s a CEO, the kind that builds skyscrapers named after himself, paid for by what his companies export into war zones. He hates me – one of me, for what I’ve been doing in those same parts of the world when I’m not pushing for a Pulitzer.

He invited me to a lunch on the top floor of one of his skyscrapers, witless that it'd been me who stopped a homicidal robot on its roof three days prior. Even with all the shattered glass, he had a breakfast table set up with Kopi Luwak and imported baguettes. Simon honestly wanted to talk to me about my criticisms of his company, at first to see if he could wow and bully me into retreating, but later about the veracity of my sources and how to keep shareholders happy while enacting reform.

All the while he peppered in attacks against my alter ego. He wanted to convince me what a danger he posed, taking responsibility away from normal people. As though he sells VX nerve gas to normal people. The surprising thing was that when I kept disagreeing, Simon grew more eager, like being stolid earned his respect.

I'll never forget. He said, "Cal, the world doesn't need him. It needs you."

That haunted me, and not just as I put on the tights and stopped his robots. Maybe that means he won.

The next day he bought my paper. We’d gone too deep into the red over the backfiring paywall, and without his money we’d have sunk. He said he’d bought it with the money he'd typically donate to PBS. He had me on the dais as he announced the takeover, and asked me to be the new editor in chief.

If this is a scheme, it’s Simon’s best. Not a single crate of weapons has ‘mysteriously gone missing’ off his cargo liners since our first breakfast together, which if you do the math, has saved more lives than I can at the speed of sound. I can’t help doing the math.

But if he expects me to run a puff piece Sunday, he’s got another thing coming.

Lists of Other Magi

"If it’s really a second coming, he’ll need a bulletproof hummer. That’s my gift: the gift of not getting martyred again by some asshole on the way to work."

"You have no sense of tradition. Luckily, I have enough for both of us: I bought a pound of frankincense, a pound of myrrh, and a pound of gold. He’ll understand."

"I couldn’t afford any of those things with my job. I think those were all the magi could offer, so I’m offering him all I can: I’ll babysit whenever his parents are busy, and whenever he’s old enough, I’ll give him a hot home-cooked meal and host his first sleepover."

"Why do you think he’s going back as a boy? The Lord would take a woman’s shape based on the geo-political climate. I got her The Complete Joan Didion to prepare her."

"I also got her some books, but mine are about reincarnation and destiny. I’m not so much interested in teaching her about it as I am finding out what parts she thinks are BS. I figure I can write my own bestseller just based on that."

"I got him the same thing I have towards all men: good will."

"Why would he… Oh, smart ass. Well I got him an iPhone 5, and he’ll use it way more than your lousy good will gag."

"I hope that Jesus is a Droid man."

"I really hope He’s ambivalent about that stuff. But I can’t know what He’ll want for His first birthday back on earth, so instead I’ve bought some comfortable shoes, some instant coffee, and a lot of diapers. I’m buying presents that’ll be convenient for His parents, because this is going to be harder on them, at least for the first few years."

"Okay, but I’m still giving him or her A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Hydra-Electric Plant

It’s a different way to power a frontier city. There’s zero pollution, minimal clean-up, and statistically fewer people die from the hydra-electric plant than from hydroelectric plants. Only one bulky guy every so often, whenever the west head phones us for feed.

It began with a two-headed hydra, the west head of which happily sold out and murdered the east head. It murdered its two children, and their four children, and so forth, until it had thousands of cranial neighbors. While it retained the intellect of a full half a hydra-brain, its cranial neighbors had to split their brain matter, over and over, until they were too dumb to understand why they lived with socks over their heads.

Now the thousands of hydra heads rub against the world’s most frictive carpet, built from the skin of a particularly tough lion, generating more static electricity than a lesser city would be able to deal with. We deal with it just fine, though. All the west head of the hydra asks is to eat a body builder every once in a while. We’re not sure what that’s about.

Bats, Dollars and Freezing Children

"Hello, this is Missouri Byrne. I’m staying with the Hopscot Family Refuge, which I’m learning has been without heat for two weeks because of an outstanding bill for twenty-one thousand dollars. Perhaps you don’t understand that nine mothers, two fathers and twenty-eight children sleep here because they have nowhere else. Perhaps twenty-one thousand dollars seems more important to you. I’m mostly calling to discover whether or not your business knows there will be a blizzard tonight.

"I have twenty-four thousand dollars and a baseball bat on my person. I don’t need to be in a place like this, but I am, and that’s all you need to know. I also have plenty of money in my checking account if you’d like to call me back and settle the matter by phone. If you can’t, but can send a truck immediately, then whoever comes can bring twenty-one thousand dollars of fuel and leave with twenty-four thousand dollars. They can keep the difference. I don’t care so long as they’re here in the next two hours.

"If they arrive two hours and one minute from now, I will beat them senseless with this bat. It’s aluminum.

"If you don’t send anyone and these families are cold again tonight, I will be on your doorstep at the opening of business tomorrow to make you feel as uncomfortable as a nine-year-old wrapped in five blankets during a blizzard. It will be a rough estimate. It will be as fair as I can make it."

“Apparently there's a Narcoleptic Vampires series...” – Colin F. Barnes

DeMarcus has always possessed an alarming tolerance to alcohol and pain killers, which is why he dropped out of college. It's also why he's custodian here, of all places, though being custodian of any busy cemetery requires tolerance for people's discomfort and oddities. Because his mother is a head trauma specialist who married the president of a Fantasy Football League, he has a high tolerance for the absurd. That last serves him well this Wednesday morning as he discovers another mound of ash in front of one of the doors to one of the crypts.

DeMarcus squints from the ash, to the authentic faux-gothic crypt, to the sun. That last makes him wince; he’s never been good at not looking the sky in the eye, and it's always too bright in the mornings. Must have to do with Global Warming. Jerking away causes his neck to ache, and he rubs at the bandage. The twin punctures beneath sting familiarly. He wishes he could take something for it. Maybe holy water?

Any non-holiday Wednesday morning is a slow one; the dew before every grave is undisturbed. He collects his broom and dust pan, then notices the keys jutting from the crypt door's lock. He steps over the ashes, pushing the door with the broom handle. It jostles against its bolts; it's still locked.

"Passed out that close to home, eh?"

DeMarcus rubs his bandage again. He's also grown a high tolerance to irony, he thinks, as he pulls out his cell and dials Kristopher. He always gets voice mail. For all his tolerances, DeMarcus hates that Kristopher always lets him go to voicemail, and so DeMarcus just says it.

"Another one bites the dust. Also bit me - third one this season, so I'll be keeping eighty percent of his deposit this time. You can put out another open space ad. Got to tell me how you keep finding the narcoleptic ones." He chuckles, which causes the muscles in his neck to lock up in protest until he squats against the crypt for support. This hurts like hell, even for eighty percent. It's in the throes of the ache that he adds, "You're lucky I've got a high tolerance to vampirism, asshole. See you before dusk, unless you want to handle a night shift for once."

Bathroom Monologue: The iBelieve

"Your religion needs an update, Father. This crucifix. Yes, it's a cross, and the image of Christ suffering for mortal sins, but those are just two functions, and most consumers see them as one. Single-use devices are unfashionable. Can't it be a keychain, too? 

"Put a bottle opener at your Savior's feet. Can't this thing play music? I've seen MP3 players and flash drives smaller than this. You could fit a terabyte in Jesus's chest. 

"It needs WiFi; pray with the rosary beads, fine, but get some Facebook integration so God can Like your best prayers on your Wall. Twitter integration, for short requests and pithy spiritual thoughts. Boundless functionality. Auto-updates. The Vatican authorizes new canon and bang, streamed straight to your personal iconography. 

"Launch it next month. A new model next year. Make people feel like they've got outdated faithware. If you can't make Steve Jobs convert, you can at least convert his methods. You're not going to Hell because you don't have one; life is Hell because you don't have one. The iChrist. The iBelieve. Think about it."

Bathroom Monologue: Character Sheet for Nigel Poshington

Name: Nigel Poshington

Character portrait: "I'm not consenting to this photograph, I'll sue you if it shows up on the web."

Occupation: C.E.O.

Religion: DOWism

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Gender: "Do you have anything bolder than 'Male'? Something that pops?"

Hit Points: "Touch me and I'll sue for every farthing in that stupid dragon hoard."

STATS
Str: 2
Con: 2
Dex: 2
Int: 4
Wis: 3
Char: 14

Inventory: Cane, briefcase, Blackberry (can summon Short Stocks three times per day), bills for commodities x5.

Class Perks: Plausible Deniability, Golden Parachute, Insider Trading (always has Initiative).

Special Abilities: Inspirational speech that none of the employees actually find inspirational; once per day can call his "friends" in the government to bail him out.

Bathroom Monologue: Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. You're not even a nice person – you're nice relative to other social climbers in the company, but you've stepped on my forehead at least three times climbing the ladder. Nicer guys are rungs in a ladder that you are ascending effortlessly, and I might say, often callously. An even remotely nicer could not cut pensions that way. The stuff you've put on the company expense account? These charges suggest an absence of moral compass that, if possessed, would make your series of promotions wholly implausible. I can only hope that you are a nice enough guy to not destroy the blue collar level of the company now that you've escaped it. The workforce is worried. Many have been jilted before. It's happened to nicer guys."

Why I tried writing a Wonder Woman movie no one will make.

TV series cancelled because a DC main character smiled.

So yesterday I posted the synopsis for a Wonder Woman movie that I tried to write in thirty minutes. It's rough as heck, but seemed worth trying when many people have spent years on adapting the character to film and came out of it saying she's an impossible character. At Comic-Con last weekend they announced a Flash and a Batman/Superman movie, and Twitter rightly got upset about the lack of such a famous character getting her screen time.

I wasn't offended until the old arguments that she's uninteresting or not fit for motion pictures resurfaced. These arguments are nonsense, and given that she is the most iconic female superhero, and the current glut of superhero movies are already decidedly light on ladies, it reads gross.

First and foremost: there is an excellent Wonder Woman movie. It's animated, free to stream if you have Amazon Prime and cheap on DVD, and could be remade live action shot-for-shot into a splendid blockbuster. And it'd be an empowering, fun action flick that happened to star an iconic woman. Please don't tell me that's the reason why you can't make it.

Second and possibly foremoster: Wonder Woman is a sexy warrior from a familiar but different culture who engages critically with ours and gets to fight anything from the Grecko-Roman bestiary or pantheon you want. She has a history of punching Nazis, robots, aliens and dragons - the untouchable holy quartet of ass-kicking. From a writing and promotional perspective, there is no reason she's not a franchise. Probably a really explodey dumb one that grosses embarrassingly well.

And my synopsis was for that kind of blockbuster. It's honestly not the Wonder Woman I'd like to make, rather the kind that seems like every producer deems unfeasible, a message I deem harmful.

If Smallville adapts the costume well as a gag,
then costume design isn't a valid excuse anymore.

The Wonder Woman movie I'd rather make is of a superhero who bridged to our culture in World War II against the worst of all possible enemies, then grew up with us for decades, with the moral decay of wars in Korea and Vietnam and Iraq, who is a crucible for our shortcomings and an agent against them. If it's too much like the Superman I'd write, well, tough. We deserve heroes we can’t relate to when we suck.

Also, the superhero movie I really want to make is actually Daredevil & She-Hulk: Attorneys at Law, but that's another story and another company.

There's a Wired column I won't waste your clicks linking to that asserts a Wonder Woman movie has to be uncomfortably feminist and bondage-themed. That's needless clickbait writing, something encroaching more and more of Wired. The truth is that a WW film can be about uncomfortable feminist issues and bondage, or about other facets of her character. The bondage baggage, in particular, is something I couldn't think to incorporate in my half hour and probably wouldn't in my final draft. It ain't essential, but it's out there and a valid interpretation.

My guess is that the real pitfalls of a Wonder Woman movie aren't that no one has an idea. As many annoying things as Joss Whedon has said about the character, he had a decent idea before Warner Bros shot him down. It's more likely money-backers who don't believe in female leads, testy focus groups, the decreasingly tenable profits blockbusters must bring in turning studios even more conservative. It's enough to make you wonder what we'd get if copyright laws were different and anyone could make a movie about her.

Enough to make you wonder. Get it?

Bathroom Monologue: The Produceds

"My partner and I began our careers with a plan destined for failure. We would hire the worst playwright, to write about the most offensive material, performed by the least competent singers and dancers on Broadway. It was a bombastic production for which everyone in town presumed we had to have a good reason, and so everyone in town bought shares. I believe we sold over two thousand and five hundred percent of the holding interest in our production. When it flopped, we'd keep all the money they gave us, that we'd spent almost none of on the awful show, and walk away rich. Maybe go see Turn Out the Night.

"The calamity was that we hit it big. A musical comedy about Hitler was exactly what the scene wanted – the avant-garde, the nouveau richesse, and the pre-hipsters all ate it up. Our box-office overflowed such that we wound up owing ungodly amounts of money to ungodly amounts of investors.

"My partner tried to blow up the theatre. I wasn't part of that, no matter what he says. I was upset, but upset to misdemeanors, not felonies. My spirits lifted after I got a call from New York.

"Actually, I got nineteen calls before nine in the A-M. See, when you get the single biggest hit in the musical world, everyone wants to work with you. By Thursday I was co-producer on three projects for which I'd never have to visit a building. I was signing my name in exchange for checks, and my new friends wouldn't let me go to jail because they needed me. They squeezed out fat checks, and bags of money as door prizes, and some sums coming pre-laundered.

"You see, I thought bankruptcy was the only option. But there's another option. There's not returning investors' calls, and when people corner you on the street, saying another investor they hate took too deep a slice and needs to be consulted, and forwarding people to lawyers who only tenuously exist, until you've got another play out. And another. And another, until something you didn't really help build is a smashing success that will forever have your name in the playbill.

"According to the blogs, I'm a genius. They're begging me to direct next year. I had a producer burn me a smoke signal using hundred dollar bills. It's a play about Native Americans. It's about as tasteful as broken glass.

"So I'm thinking about directing. I'm also thinking about how many shares I'll sell."

Bathroom Monologue: LIVE from the Shoe

There was an old lady who lived in a shoe. She conceived what can only be considered an implausible number of children for a woman who lived in a cramped one-bedroom, but there they all were, living in abject poverty, thirteen people living where only five toes belonged. Yet this poverty did not last for long. Not in the age of Youtube.

One video was all it took for her soleful family to viral, and for CNN and Wired to herald her as an economic genius, making shoe-life work in a bad economy. Warren Buffett invited her to lunch, and she hosted the first-ever TED Talk from a Footlocker, on the wisdom of laces and how to expand your personal spaces. Before the end of the fiscal quarter, she was a real estate tycoon, able to flip any property into a spacious dream house.

She only started as an old lady who lived in a shoe. She was a visionary, and I believe she invented the Tardis.

Bathroom Monologue: Anton and Anton

Anton sits on his knees before the grave of Anton. For a while, Emil and Yulia's son holds Anton's left hand and does his impression of prayer; at three years old, he no better understands prayer than he does who is buried beneath his soles.

"Amen," Emil and Yulia's son mutters, releasing Anton's hand to rub at his eyes. The drive here has made him drowsy, and Yulia stoops to pick him up. She bows a quarter of the way she normally would, dipping herself and her child toward the headstone.

Instead of 'Amen,' she says, "Thank you for saving my husband, Anton." She says nothing more, and ends her bow. She did not think much of Anton, the drunken shadow of her Emil. She is two paces behind Anton when he checks her, her gaze already on the car.

It is four years to the Saturday since Anton Behrs was blown up pulling Emil from a foundry. That is what everyone knows. They commemorate it on Saturdays because Emil Behrs has never in eleven years missed a day at the exchange, and Anton will not let Emil fail now. He misses absinthe.

"This is a bathtub-in-the-kitchen apartment, right?” –Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

"This is a bathtub-in-the-kitchen apartment. The four of us share a fold-out bed, tucked underneath cheap sofa cushions, and when it's a sofa, at least one of us has to sit an arm-rest. I've gotten good at balancing up there. This is an oven-is-also-a-space-heater apartment, whether you want it or not, winter or summer. This is a the-only-window-is-our-air-conditioner apartment. We don't have wifi, we don't have cable, and our musical selection is whatever the guy upstairs plays too loud, a station that broadcasts all night. He loves Thrash Metal and we're trying to learn to appreciate it. We love it here. If you pity our bathtub in the kitchen apartment, then you must not know where we came from."

Bathroom Monologue: Homeless Magician

Skepticism kills jobs. The encroachment of science, obliterating hunger and HIV, left people with no wonder for a man levitating on stage. They thought they saw wires he didn’t need. Infinite kerchiefs from his sleeve paled from Nova’s special on infinite bubble universes. He even caught his beautiful and talented assistant brushing up on Honors Chem; he could have prognosticated the fine career she’d have, but she quit before he could tell her. There was no money left in magic, and soon he had to saw himself in half just to fit inside a friend’s rent controlled closet. He’d be damned if he slept with the rabbits in his hat.

Bathroom Monologue: 5 Failed Dating Tips from a Super-Rich Friend

1. Approach him with your eyes affixed to someone or something else nearby, then fake tripping and spill your Merlot on him. Offer to buy him a new wardrobe. That will work as a starter date.
   
   
2. Ask his position on prostitution and how it’s really just a contract between consenting adults. Ask if he realizes marriage is a contract between consenting adults. Finally, ask how much it should cost to marry him for a while.
   
   
3. Buy every seat on the train, plane, theatre, or whatever else it is that you’re at, I didn’t catch it at first. Anyway, when the two of you are alone in the building, sidle up to him and act like this solitude must be kismet.
   
   
4. Jesus, I don’t know. Talk to him and see if you have chemistry.
   
   
5. Hire some ex-military officers, preferably something professional, to attack him, and to take a dive when you run in to fend off their fascists. Keep their card for a second attack whenever your date loses steam.

Bathroom Monologue: Thief Stranded in Virginia

“Yes, this is about a credit card you’ve flagged as stolen because of purchases out of state. When your company moved to flag my card, did anyone look at the expenses and purchases, or was it a computer? I ask because if you would be so kind as to look right now, you’ll find about two weeks ago, when I was still buying dinner and subway cards in New Jersey, I also bought a train ticket to Virginia. Virginia being where all the ‘flagged’ purchases happened: dinners, hotel and a rental car. Yes, so was it a computer, or did a person think I’d been robbed by a tourist? Because whichever it is, I’d like you to explain it to this nice police officer who’s held me in custody for the last day for stealing my own credit card in order to go to my family reunion.”

Bathroom Monologue: Investing in Tomorrows

"Benjamin Franklin is quoted saying that a single today is worth two tomorrows. Now the board of directors defrauded me of thirty-one years of pension time. That amounts to 11,242 todays that I put into a retirement. Where did it go? They say the stock tanked, yet they have golden parachutes.

"I lost over eleven thousand todays. How many did you lose? How fair would it seem if the board spent twenty-two thousand tomorrows in a dungeon somewhere? Fair trade by the reckoning of a founding father.

"I have a very nice basement. By that I mean that it has a black mold infestation and some kind of mammal keeps breaking in through unknown holes. I think they’re raccoons, but they bite more than raccoons are known to.

"Now, I’m a little old to go around kidnapping. I'm only proposing this to our... board? Our Board of Owed Parties. Yes, I like that, don't you?

"So, I’d lease my basement to the Board, if there was interest. How many tomorrows do you think these people owe you?"

Bathroom Monologue: Debt Game

It goes like this.

The plumber wants the coins. He doesn’t know why, but he’ll scarcely ever turn back in his furious pursuit rightwards of the shining golden GIFs.

The player wants the plumber to have the coins. They’re a detached score, extra lives, the promise of hidden unlockables, and most of all, rotating motivation to make the plumber run faster into stimulation.

The designer wants the player to want the plumber to have the coins. Getting hooked on this feedback loop will mean the player will play it longer, play it more often, buy the sequels, the t-shirts, the cellphone skin, the tie-in movies. Then the designer will be able to feed his family.

The publisher wants the designer to hook the player on getting the plumber those coins. Employing and taking the work of such a designer means greater profits for the release quarter, shareholder satisfaction, brand awareness and stability. The publisher can turn this into an institution.

The investor wants the publisher to find the designers that can hook the players to do dumb crap. Then the yields will be up, dividends may begin, and the portfolio will be rosier. The investor can watch the publisher’s daily NYSE rating tick up and down with news, reviews and sales figures of the designer’s game that the player is playing. The chart goes up and down and ever rightward, like the trails of someone jumping.

They all have less time than they think. Neither plumber nor investor knows why.

Bathroom Monologue: Decent Proposal

“Madame, I will be the first suitor today to speak honestly with you. I wish only to marry you for your money. Now, every man who’s come in here before me has had the same intentions despite what he says, but you might consider them more polite, or playing some social game that has appeal. I think not, I think you’re cleverer than that, which is why you’ll see that I am the best suitor for your estate, not because of honesty, but because of what I’ll do with your holdings.

“I work at the local bank, where last year I turned nine-hundred-thousand pounds in portfolios into two-point-three million pounds, and if they don’t touch those accounts, it will be ten times that in a tenth the effort in less than ten fiscal quarters. I’ve been trained by the best tax liars: the revenue services themselves.

“I’ve got scandalous connections in both mercantile and caravan industries, two which you are likely sick of dealing with. These people need ports; they are ultimately vulnerable to their shape and ownership. Your family gives you one port and your late husband provides you two more. You are many things: eligible, wise, but foremost to these people, you are the definition and portrait of ‘international.’ I know who of these businessfolk are the most vulnerable, the easiest to bend, and where they cheat. You are set for life, but I can guarantee our children will be rich for all of theirs, and I brought the projections to prove it. All it will cost to see them is a simple, ‘I do.’”