part 9

Hi.

And . . ?

Hi.

Sure.

You may want to reserve judgement on that.

Yeah, we got caught with our pants down. Thanks for stepping in.

Right.

Right now.

Is somebody going to set it up from there?

Ok, whenever you’re ready.

Yeah.

No, go for it.

Ok.

Absolutely.

No shit. Avatar two. Return of the Butcher.

What else can you say? Nothing in human history begins to compare.

I’m in shock like everybody else. It’s sickening.

Nobody can keep up with the feeds. Five million? Ten million? Hell, fifty? Who the hell knows?
In a single day! And he’s not done! What the fuck happens tomorrow?

I just want to start screaming.

Because I don’t know what else to do!

And say what? I don’t know what the fuck he’s gonna do!

Ok, how about this? News flash! God has decided that being rich is now a capital crime! If you have piles of money and are listening to this message, congratulations! You’re one of the few rich people on the planet who hasn’t died a horrible death in the last few hours! You may still have a few minutes to say your prayers, although I’m inclined to think that would be a colossal waste of precious time. I’d advise you to spend your remaining moments isolating yourselves, because when the Hammer makes his appearance, there’s gonna be a party. He’s not just going to kill you, he’s going to kill your wife and your children and your mother and your brother and your partner and your fucking secretary and your fucking maid and any other fucking bozo who happens to be in the room with you whether he has a pot to piss in or not.

Don’t take it personally, you’re doing the best you can. But let’s just put to rest the notion that the Chosen Idiot can predict what the Tin Man will do.

I don’t know that either.

Your guess is as good as mine, but obviously he expected us to do it in five freaking weeks.

I did indeed.

Well, it’s not like he left us instructions.

Exactly. And nobody would extrapolate beyond the obvious. The assumption was that God had smitten all the sinners and everyone left was guiltless by default.

Well I made a lot of noise about it, but I sure as hell never saw this coming.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it?

He’s killing rich people. And he’s killing their families. And anyone else near them when it happens.,

Is there any other way to describe it?

I have no idea, but there’s no justification for it.

None.

I have no idea.

I don’t care, it’s wrong.

Because there is no supportable rationale, none, not now, not ever, for taking the lives of innocent people, especially children.

It doesn’t matter, ten, two, in utero.

Listen, I’ve never really been on the bandwagon, you know that, people try to kill me for that very reason. But it’s been hard to argue against what he’s done up to now. He saved millions of lives, even though there’s been an exponential return to bad habits since he’s been gone. But this crosses the line. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Period.

I don’t know. It changes everything.

I don’t even know what to say to that.

Sure.

Well, it’s hard to believe. Nothing, nothing he’s ever done suggested this kind of power.

If you like.

Well, he shows up near the geographical center of a large metropolitan area. He generates a heat wave that’s not hot enough to damage things, but hot enough to drive people away. This phase lasts from ten seconds to three minutes depending on who’s telling the story. Then he rips off a neuron burst of staggering proportions. It has a range of more than thirty kilometers, something like twenty miles and apparently it targets people with high incomes, along with their families and anyone with physical proximity to them at the time. Friends, associates, servants, guests, whoever has the bad luck to be in the same room or even building with them, man, woman, or child. Doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing. At home, at work, horribly enough, in front of live television cameras.

I don’t know what the threshold is. It looks like there are local standards. And I have no idea how he makes the identification. None. He can kill everyone in a family that’s spread out over an entire city. One at work, one at school, one standing in the freaking checkout line at the grocery store.

I’m not going to mention any names.

I don’t have to. Shit, think about it.

Look, if you haven’t been watching the reports, brace yourself. With the exception of the assholes who govern us and C list entertainers, just about everyone you’ve ever heard of is dead.

No, I can’t read ‘em anymore. I get synopses, you know that.

I just can’t take it, especially now.

I’m numb! Aren’t you? It’s . . it’s . .

The most . . I don’t know, it utterly defies description.

I don’t know. I don’t even really have my head around it, it just doesn’t seem real, you know? Some part of me won’t believe it’s actually happening.

Then there’s that. It’s . . I don’t even know what to say. Disgusting. Sickening. I know I keep saying that but it’s the only accurate description of the way I feel.

How do those parasites get a pass?

I guess he’s leaving the political infrastructure intact.

What do you think? Who’d be left? Shit, you could be president.

Well, I’m trying to find some comfort in the prospect that they’re probably living on borrowed time.

Nooo, thanks.

No, no, I won’t even discuss it. Move on.

Well, apparently God’s taken the position that greed is not good.

No?

You don’t think wealth and greed go hand in hand?

I know, I know, but it still seems to indict the trait, doesn’t it?

Well, you can be greedy without being rich, can you be rich without being greedy?

Then how do you get to be rich?

Listen, in order to have a billion dollars, you have to reach the point where you have half a billion dollars and say, this ain’t enough, I want more.

Well, fortunately for most people, being greedy hasn’t become a capital crime. Succeeding at it has.

But I still think judgement on the nature of the impulse is implied.

I have no idea.

I don’t pay any attention to them.

Oh, really? I’m not surprised.

Well, rich people have always told us that poor people deserve to be poor because they’re lazy and stupid.

Listen, when I was a kid, I heard a family member I won’t identify say he hated paying taxes because they all went to support that nigger whore and her twelve bastards. Now . .

Right, that nigger whore and her twelve bastards.

Oh yeah.

I know, it’s like the perfect storm of so many forms of ignorance and hatred that just saying it out loud should make it rain blood or toads or something, but it’s an example of the grotesque extremes we’ll go to to demonize the poor.

That’s the other extreme.

It’s just more religious hypocrisy, served by bankrupt superstitious cosmology. It goes like this: God the puppetmaster controls the outcome of every event. Everything that happens is God’s will. Therefore, the rich deserve to be rich by virtue of being rich. Being rich is actually proof God loves them and approves of their behavior. And the poor are obviously poor because God wants them to be poor, therefore, the reasoning goes, it’s actually against God’s will to help them.

Isn’t it?

At this point I’d have to say the question’s moot.

He ain’t whackin’ whores, is he?

Sounds simple to me, God or mammon. Pick one.

He didn’t say you shouldn’t make money, he said you shouldn’t serve money.

I guess they were wrong, weren’t they?

Too late.

No it isn’t.

No, no, it doesn’t work that way. That kind of shit only has a chance to work in small societies, the sheer scale of modern living totally distorts all that.

Because the rich and powerful can manipulate the properties of that scale so they can reap the benefits of their actions and not have to bear the consequences.

Look, we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in small groups. Let’s say we live in a tribe of two hundred. I make pots. You come to me and trade me something for a pot. If you like the pot, you can come tell me that. If the pot sucks, you can come give me shit for it. You can try to induce me to do something about the situation. If you’re interested in pots, you can come pick my brain about making pots. We have a relationship that’s equally reciprocal in that way. That doesn’t mean it’s always fair, but we’re connected in a dynamic that’s two-way. Much of life today is like that, but not for everyone. Let’s say I own a computer operating system. You buy a computer with my OS on it. You didn’t have much choice in the matter, the simple ubiquity of the damn thing demands that you buy it. Some of the money you paid goes into my pocket. What you’ve obtained from me directly affects your life. It has a significant effect on your daily experience. But you can’t come knock on my door when your hard drive crashes, you can’t have any affect on me personally at all. I create a buffer to shield me from you. Not only do I not have to answer to you, but I’ll get a piece of the action when you pay for the help you have to have because my product sucks. I’ve got you coming and going.

Right. The benefits of the interaction are totally out of proportion to the responsibilities. But those consequences don’t just go away. To deal with them I need a thousand people in call centers taking the heat for something they had nothing to do with.

None of them are billionaires.

It’s the same with movie stars and athletes and all that.

No need to belabor it, they’re mostly dead now.

No, of course not, it would be impossible. But you can make up for it in other ways. If I take advantage of the inequities inherent in a system, I have a responsibility to share whatever I gain from it.

Look, nothing could be simpler. My customers and my workforce are all children of God. If I profit from serving them, I serve him. If I profit from exploiting them, I exploit him. He’s made it clear how he feels about that.

You can rob someone just as effectively with economic power as you can with a gun. More effectively. And more often.

Why? There is no debate. Judgement has been rendered and sentence is being carried out. End of argument.

I have no idea. I’d like to think so, but he doesn’t seem to be making that distinction.

Yeah, I know. I guess the sins of the father and all that crap.

No, hell no. I told you, there’s no justification for killing the innocent.

How many times do I have to say it? It’s wrong.

It’s genocide! There isn’t any other word for it. He’s using murder to advance some program of social engineering. He’s doing exactly the same thing he was executing people for two months ago!

If I could?

I’d stop him.

Of course!

I don’t care.

I’m not the person to ask.

Look, I’m an engineer. I’m totally unqualified for this. Every day I read commentary by someone who addresses these issues in a much more profound and eloquent manner. I can’t discuss the nature of the human experience or analyze things in a complex or abstract or compelling way. I basically describe what I see and I’m painfully aware my comments have no philosophical depth or scope.

No, I’m a random artifact of a unique and totally chaotic event.

I understand, but I don’t understand. The reason we do this is because people watch, and they watch because I’m the Chosen One. But I’m not a direct source of information anymore, I watch the feeds along with everybody else. So, we sit around and belabor the obvious, even though I’m not an expert on any of the things we discuss.

Mostly I’m just talking out my ass.

Well, I don’t see that I’ll be able to help him either.

Yeah, I got the call a couple hours ago.

Like everyone else, I guess he’s hoping I’ll have some special insight into things.

Maybe he thinks I know things I don’t share with just anyone.

I understand it. The upper class take a double standard for granted.

Yeah, I’ll be leaving as soon as I get the word.

Nope, first time.

These are special circumstances. And I’m not an average guest.

He’s usually surrounded by layers of armed security. They have to figure out a way to bring me in without evoking the Tin Prick.

Secret service is just one layer.

I have no idea.

I think in view of what’s going on right now, he may feel like he’s in the crosshairs.

I’d say so.

I don’t see how.

I’m feeling a little lost, aren’t you?

Everything is different now!

I just can’t get my head around this thing, I feel totally disconnected from it. It’s so . . huge, so . . I don’t know. I don’t know . .

No, what he’s doing is wrong. It’s just wrong. I know that, but I can’t do anything about it. All along I harbored this hope that he really knew what he was doing. He’s the product of an advanced race, I had to think he knew a better way, that he could really fix things somehow.

I don’t know, I . . look, I try to reverse engineer his rationale. I’m trying to understand. And I'll tell you something, I’m starting to hear his voice. You know? Do you ever consider an issue and hear your father’s voice, or your grandmother or something? Not really hear them, but imagine what they’d say?

It’s like that. I know he’s not really talking to me, it’s just my imagination, but sometimes . . sometimes God help me it feels like he’s right there inside my head.

Because it scares the hell out of me.

All right, think about this. Right now, right NOW, while we sit here being useless, he’s out there, killing. Why? I ask. Because, he says, I am not the God of compassion. I am the God of vengeance. Again I ask, why? And he answers, Why do you ask? I am made in Man’s image. And I say, it’s not fair! You gave us no warning! And he answers, Your warnings echo down the corridors of time for twenty thousand generations of human preeminence on Earth. They are woven into the fabric of myth and legend and history alike. They are carved into wood and clay and stone, writ large on the skins of animals and parchment and bamboo. They are printed in books, given voice in song, and issue softly from the lips of those who know the way. The wisdom to guide you is ever at hand, yet you choose to ignore it, to distort it, to twist it to suit your selfish ends. But, I ask, you take the innocent with the guilty! And he replies, Do you spare a dead tree for a single live branch? Tear it out by the roots!

Yeah, no kidding.

No, no, I understand.

I don’t know.

I don’t think it matters.

Yeah, one.

Who’s next?