The Quarry

Transcript of the Counter-Argument for the Demolition of the Quarry - October 12th

The arguments herein were presented following an incident in which a man with unchecked abilities was shot and killed near the Quarry. Army soldiers stated he represented a clear and present danger to the community.

The mayor finished his arguments regarding a resolution to demolish the old quarry, to stop squatters from residing within it. His claims of potential criminal elements being given free reign resonated with many of the concerns of the public.
The mayor looked down at the teenager, clearly she was unaccustomed to public speaking. "Don't be nervous," he said with a chuckle, remembering back to his first time speaking in front of a crowd.
The girl locked eyes with him, and a passion seemed to overtake her.

"You say "Don't be nervous,"

but I'm not nervous in the least.

I tried to keep it civil,

Now it's time to unleash the beast.

I tried to play it your way

I tried to keep it cool.

But I don't talk like you do

So I won't play the fool.

The walls are closing in on us

the army's here in force.

We're about to run aground

And just NOW you're plotting course?

I assume you somehow missed

just how many people died;

the school is crushed; innocent blood ran deep;

There's armed soldiers just outside.

The army's not invited

to the city council meetings

I fear attendance would take a dive

if there were military beatings

Our town's upon a precipice

the time for action's now

The only question we should ask

is the simple question "How?"

How do we keep the death toll low?

How best might we stay alive?

We can't win a war on numbers

if one person outnumbers four or five.

Stop thinking of them as enemies

We can't resort to putting 'em down.

We're locked up in this quarantine

We all need some peaceful ground.

What if your powers flare up

whether you're angry or you're not?

Should a bullet put between your eyes

be the only end you've got?

We went to the middle of nowhere

now we have plenty of space

Nobody should be hurt that way

so stay back, just in case.

We're learning to control it

by living day to day.

Give us a chance to self-regulate

And I promise we'll be okay.

Call the Quarry a danger zone

Let everybody know.

So if anyone starts to manifest

They'll know that's where to go.

So let us have our haven.

It's old, abandoned, unused.

But it takes us and accepts us,

Even those the city refused."

Vote was called for demolishing the quarry. Nearly unanimous against. A resolution was advised to make the quarry a respected area for those with powers to self-regulate without fear of collateral damage or violent intervention. Unanimously voted for.

Love at first Bite, Chapter 4

  Agent Red turned to look behind her when the pressure change caused her ears to pop.  The mirror wall behind her was sliding to the side, revealing a much larger room with a slender table. There were only two chairs, one already occupied on one end, and the other near to Agent Red. The only ornamentation on the table was a glass display cube in the center. She couldn't read the words from this distance, but it was unmistakably a skull. A trophy of the woman at the other end of the table, and perhaps a warning.
  At the head of the table sat a woman that had the air of authority, and the glare of the guilty. Her eyes were beginning to have wrinkles, despite looking otherwise barely over thirty. But that was a hazard of the job, seeing horrors unfathomable to the populous, and watching your humanity slip away.
  "Am I to understand you are the Queen of Hearts?"
  "I am. And am I to understand that a red-level agent is in my presence?"
  "I am. I assume by this point you've already started verifying my statements, so let's cut to the chase. I will continue the mission I was given, without intervention or reporting to you, using this base and its resources. When I am not on mission, I will have my own room to maintain security, and will not interfere with this base or its operations."
  "No."
  "As you've stated, I am a red-level agent. Protocol demands.." but Agent Red was cut off.
  "Protocol demands that advanced notice be sent for the transfer of reds. Protocol demands hand-off of the red. And protocol demands that I lock anyone falsifying their identity in the brig to await questioning. So far you're just a kid that opened a briefcase and decided to go on a goose chase. Press your luck and you'll be lucky to even make it to the brig. Or we can sit, have a chat, and spare both of us the hassle of waterboarding you."
  Agent Red looked into the eyes of the woman across the table. She was a bit older, but still fit. Her hands had long ago run red with the blood she had spilled, but it was a mere trickle compared to the river Agent Red had been responsible for. The Queen may have been older, but just by looking into the dark void of her eyes, Agent Red knew she had left her humanity years before her. She looked around the room again, still bare but for the table, skull, chairs and occupants. She thought about her options.
  "Three questions."
  "I'll ask as many questions as I need to."
  "You either can save us both time and choose to ask three questions now, or torture me for information, even though I've been trained not to talk since before you started bleeding. Three questions and three answers; or as many questions as you want, but no answers."
  The older woman stared back at her, sizing her up as she had from the moment the wall had slid open. Her eyebrow had raised at the recent outburst, though, and she took a moment to choose her words carefully before responding.
  "Three questions, off the record, so I can judge if I can trust you in my base. If I determine you are, no detention, no torture, I spare you a room, but if I need you for a mission, you're part of my team."
  "My mission takes priority over the missions of this base. If you agree, ask your questions."
  "How did Monochromatic Dawn find you?"
  "I was lucky enough to be in an orphanage that sent psych evaluations to local governments bodies. The Dawn got wind of it and took me into custody."
  "How long ago was that?"
  "Twenty-two years... three months... and seven days ago. Approximately."
  "That's a rather specific answer to be called approximate."
  "The more thorough my answer, the less reason you have to distrust me, and the sooner I can get back to what I should be doing."
  "Well then. Last question. And now that you say it's dust, there's little reason not to disclose it. What happened to the original agents stationed at Monochromatic Dawn?"
  "It was before my time there."
  "Only by a few years. I'm sure people talk."
  "Rarely to a red agent. But there were documents. Redacted, of course."
  "What. Happened?"
  "There were two scientists funded and supervised directly by the military. Dr. White and Dr. Black. Codenames, probably. No government oversight, and no ethics committee. They were told to find a cure for cancer, by whatever means necessary. Bodies would come in regularly, sometimes not yet dead, just terminal. Dr. White made a break-through in his research, and was preparing for testing on cadavers. Not wanting to fall behind, Dr. Black went directly to live human testing. He referred to a Subject Zero, but something went wrong. No documents were found after that, and instead of witnesses, the base contained corpses. Less than there had been staff members. Original theory was that they were taken as hostages, until we realized they were being infected and turned.  Since then it's been mostly about containment, and collecting the information that was lost about the experiments."
  The Queen of Hearts opened her mouth, but was quickly interrupted by Agent Red. "Those were your three questions. I have been awake for nearly thirty-six hours straight. I trust any other concerns you have can wait until you've upheld your part of the arrangement."
  "As you wish," the Queen said, standing and opening the door behind her.
  Agent Red stood and went to follow her, glimpsing the small plaque on the skull's display case as she walked. It had only two words. "Subject Zero."

Love at First Bite, Chapter 3

  There was another knock at the door, louder this time.
  "Shouldn't you answer it?" asked the rookie below her.  She looked down at his face, having already forgotten who she'd taken into her bed this time. Clearly he was a fool, though, unable to enjoy the moment she had chosen to bless him with.
  "Come in," she called out, getting out of the bed. The door began to open and the rookie quickly tried to cover up in the blanket. "Men," thought the Queen of Hearts, "they pretend to be brave, yet are afraid of others seeing their body. Cowards, the lot of them."
  The door now open, her second-in-command took one look at the room before staring intently at his own feet. Prince Charming was one of her best field agents, but the queen enjoyed torturing him with discomfort. His modesty was outdated, and he was becoming so as well.
  The rookie, meanwhile, had bundled up in blankets trying to make it look like he wasn't present.
  "Your majesty, an agent is here from Monochromatic Dawn. She says it was attacked."
  "And I told you I was busy. That was a mere half hour ago," she said with clear disgust, her eyes focusing on the pile of blankets.  "Do you forget so readily, Prince Charming?"
  "She's a Red, your majesty."
  Her eyes grew wide, and she blurred into motion. She grabbed her bra from her trophy cabinet, it was among her collection of skulls. Her pants slipped on in a flash, the leather nearly skin-tight. Her eyes swept the room for her other missing apparel before she grunted in frustration and headed for the door.
  "You should have gotten me sooner. What do we know about her, Charming?"
  "Nothing. There was nothing about her in the database, and," but he was cut off.
  "Of course there wasn't. Reds aren't given a file. As far as paperwork is concerned, Reds don't even exist. Admitting that they do would be admitting the mission is failing. What has she said or done? Tell me everything. Every detail. And send the videos to my room so I can review whatever you miss, Charming."
  "We first spotted her in the woods, walking here with a briefcase. She announced herself as Agent Red, and did genuflect. I opened the lake, and she entered the waiting room, sat facing away from the door. She says he partner broke protocol and was taken out by a landmine, so she's alone. Possibly the last survivor."
  "It could be a trick. When was the last check-in from Monochromatic Dawn?"
  "They failed to check in this morning, your majesty."
  "Damn it. Do you have any good news?"
  "No activity behind her in the woods. She wasn't followed."
  The Queen of Hearts opened the door to the welcome room, and looked through the sliding glass wall at the mysterious Red.
  "Charming. Why is there a crack in my waiting room's wall?"
  "She slammed a document against it. The White Rabbit Protocol."
  "Great. Not only a Red agent, but one that thinks she's a lawyer." The Queen took a deep breath and lightly massaged her forehead, collecting her thoughts. Being half-naked would not go over well with such a rule monger, especially one that had already been given the run-around by someone lacking authority.
  "Give me your jacket, Charming."
  "What?"
  "I said hand me your top. You already screwed this situation up more than enough, we need to show her we're on the up and up."
  Prince Charming mumbled, but unbuttoned his uniform and handed it to the Queen.
 "Make sure I get videos of the events, ready the rookie's room for her, and let him know he's on standby to give her the tour, Charming. Now get out of here," she said, pressing the button to slide open the glass wall. "It's time I do some girl-talk."

Love at First Bite, Chapter 2

Chapter 2  (Chapter 1 Edit: stopped at a motel, not hotel)

  The motel's mattress was covered in files. A pistol, maps, passwords, money, protocols, and enough other documents to make someone's head spin spilled from the mattress onto the floor. Agent Red looked over it again, piecing through the puzzle one last time, to make sure she had enough to move forward. White Rabbit Protocol was disorganized, unsophisticated, tedious, and worst of all, well documented. She hated that, it made it too easy to fall into the wrong hands, but she would have to bite her tongue. Today it just might have saved her life.

  She looked at the closed blinds. Only a little light was making it into the edges of the room. She glanced at the digital clock, and saw it was already 6pm. She wouldn't have time to sleep if she wanted to make it there tonight, and dusk would soon be coming. She'd driven the car until the gas sputtered out, though, and they might have it tagged from the base. She would have to hotwire a civilian vehicle if she wanted to get there tonight.

  "Great," She thought to herself. "One day without the base and I'm already going back to being a criminal. Maybe I should just take a cab... into the middle of nowhere... that wouldn't be the least bit suspicious," she stung herself with the sarcasm, but it hurt less than her past. She started putting the documents back in the briefcase, then the money on top of it, just like protocol required. She already had a pistol on her belt, but would keep the other ready. Never hurt to have a back-up plan. As the last of the five thousand dollars found their place in the briefcase, Agent Red looked to the window again. "Good. Sunset. Time to move out."

  ---

  She left the car a few miles up the road at a diner for truckers. When they realized it was abandoned, it wouldn't arouse too much suspicion that way. At least, it wouldn't cause as much suspicion as being abandoned near a man-made lake that had more than a few warning signs. This way if a search was done, it would be in the forest, they likely wouldn't think to check the lake.

  And so she walked, briefcase in hand, mile after mile after mile. The sounds of the owls accompanied her journey, the constant question of "Who?" digging into her subconscious. Was she still that little girl from decades ago? Was she just another street rat, plagued with thoughts no sane mind would have?
  "No. No," she said to herself, speaking out loud to drown out the query of the forest, and saw the shimmering lake come into view. "I am Agent Red, of Monochromatic Dawn. A light shines from the hilltop where our base once stood. I humbly request an audience with the Queen of Hearts." She set the briefcase down at the edge of the lake, knelt on it, placed her hands on the back of her head, and waited. And she waited. Her arms began to grow tired and she wondered if she had somehow ended up at the wrong lake. Her thoughts began to wander again, but then she noticed something was different. The owls were silent.

  The ground rumbled, and the lake water shifted. Two glass partitions had risen from the water, and now slid apart, revealing a stairwell beneath the beach of White Rabbit Lake. Agent Red stood, lifted the briefcase, and headed down. At the bottom was a small room, clearly intended as an interrogation room. She looked at her reflection in the glass and scowled, sitting down in the chair that sat facing away from the glass. She was breaking protocol, but this was one exception worth making.

  She looked around the room as the wall began to slide back, returning the lake upstairs to a serene, pristine scene. In the room there was the typical table in the middle, one chair on either side, and the lamp in the middle. A few panel lights in the ceiling, and plate glass along one wall for onlookers. She looked around the room again. One, two, three walls and the glass. There was no doorway in sight.

  "Agent Red, was it?"
  "Affirmative." A moment passed.
  "What is the status of Monochromatic Dawn, Agent Red?"

  "Dust and ash. They attacked during patrol," Agent Red answered. Her words hung in the air too long. Perhaps her inquisitor was having a moment of silence for the fallen, she thought.

  "Where is your partner, Agent Red?"

  "Agent Green broke protocol, attempting to enter a tainted zone. Only good it did was taking one landmine out of play." Again, silence was the first response.

  "It's rare for a red agent to grace our humble abode. We don't seem to have any of your files in the database. Please identify."

  It was her turn to take a moment of silence this time. Something was off. "By whom am I being interrogated?"

  "This is a conversation, not an interrogation."

  "I requested an audience with the Queen of Hearts. Identify." Again, silence. Longer than the others. They had her locked in a room without exits, but she didn't even know who they were. Clearly, though, not the right person to speak to.

  "I say again, I requested an audience with the Queen of Hearts. Until I am speaking with her, this conversation is over." She expected a pause this time, but it didn't come.

  "The Queen is indisposed."

  "This.  Takes.  Priority."

  "That is up to the Queen to decide."

  "Bullshit," said Agent Red, opening the briefcase. They money fanned across the table as she got the document regarding agent transition. She stood and slammed it against the glass, her eyes staring into the reflection of her scar. The glass gave less resistance than she'd expected, and she heard a small crack. "Now get me the Queen."

LOVE AT FIRST BITE (Chapter 1)

  Agent Red's pale skin seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, her ruby lips breaking the otherwise black and white night.

  She looked across the barren parking ramp, and impatiently stamped her foot. She checked her watch, ten minutes late, this was just like him. She heaved a sigh and headed for the warmth of the car.

   "Sorry," his voice startled her, she hadn't even heard his approach, but he was right next to the car. "Things got a bit... heated," he said, dropping the flamethrower for emphasis.

  "You're late. Again. We should be halfway back by now. Put it in the boot and let's go."

  "You should be happy. We're getting closer, Red."

  "I'll have plenty of reason to be happy when there are no more of them in town, Agent Green," she snarked, slamming the car door.

  Agent Green fanned out his trenchcoat and sat in the passenger seat, nodding gravely. "I thought they said there was supposed to be a den in there. But it was pretty bare, a few sleeping bags and piles of clothes. I lit it all up, anyway. They won't be back."

  Agent Red glanced at the dashboard. Where else would they be at one in the morning, she wondered. She looked down again as the speedometer crested eighty, and noticed she had a quarter tank. It would be enough to get back, but she would need to refill before patrol tomorrow night.

  "HQ, this is Envy and Blood, nest was ashed but no roaches present. Heading back to the roost, over," Agent Green called into the walkie.

  The car rushed along the rural road, trees and fields whizzing past. Silence loomed in the air as they waited for the response.

  "I say again, no roaches found, Green and Red returning to base, over," said Agent Green on the walkie.

  "Battery's probably just dead. You forget to charge it again?"

  "That only happened once, Red. The problem isn't the battery. And I've got signal. Only thing missing is response. When was the last communication from base?"

  Agent Red checked the clock. "It's been over an hour. I was busy wondering why you were running late. Besides, it's Agent Blue on comms tonight, and he makes you seem downright responsible. Probably just fell asleep, or wandered from his post."

  "Blue might not be a stick-in-the-mud like you, Red, but nothing gets in the way of his comm time. On nights we patrol he won't even let me touch the walkie."

  "Well, you are just a rookie, Agent Green. Base is just over the next hilltop. Nothing to fret over yet. We'll find out the real story soon enough," Agent Red said confidently, yet was readying her sidearm, so the rookie followed suit.

  As the hilltop met the horizon, the base came into view. A burning wasteland was all that met their gaze, the barbed wire melting in the heat of a hundred fires where hours ago buildings stood.

  Agent Red skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, staring at the burning carcass of their base. "White Rabbit Protocol."

  "What?" burst Agent Green, "Aren't you at least going to check for survivors? This isn't the time for protocol!" He said, slamming the door behind him as he ran for the entrance.

  "It's always the time for protocol," muttered Agent Red.

  There was a flash, and Agent Red winced. Her ears were ringing from the explosion, but she felt the car shake a moment later. She lowered her arm to look out, and saw Agent Green's lifeless body, his eyes still open, staring into the cab of the car. His left leg was missing, just a nub near his hip.  He must have stepped on a mine, Agent Red mused, too shaken by the recent events to allow any emotion into her thoughts.

  The window shattered inward, his leg no longer missing. Agent Red changed gears, and the car began speeding backwards, leaving the shattered remains of both the former agent and the former window on the road.

  From the debris of the headquarters rose a shape, and it called out to the speeding vehicle. "You thought you were predators. You will only ever be prey."

  The car spun quickly as Agent Red changed gears again. She drove as far as the gas would take her, stopping at a hotel shortly before dawn. She took the briefcase inside with her, put the "do not disturb" sign on the door handle, and closed the blinds. It was going to be a long day.

A New Start

Too long I have quoted Vanilla Ice by believing "Anything less than the best is a felony." This should be viewed only as far as one's attempt should be the best they can give, but anything less than the best... just needs editing. One need not always create things of perfection, and in fact that is one of life's great joys. Not being perfect doesn't make you, as the previous quote implies, a felon. Indeed, it serves to make you human, to remind you that you may not be perfect, but that you can improve.

This blog hasn't been updated in two months. Not because I haven't had ideas, not because I haven't written. It was because life got busy, and then I withdrew. After being away from it, I felt like a failure, rather than simply like someone that had made a mistake. Every day grew harder, with me thinking of a post I could make to redeem myself and begin again. A comic about a boy who woke up late and said something to the effect of "Guess I'll try again tomorrow" was a common thought about how I could break back into blogging. And I thought about using New Year's as a fresh start, but again found it intimidating.

This is my blog, though, so I needed to remind myself that I wouldn't be breaking in to it again. There is no one to be intimidated of, but myself.

So, I didn't do my hour of writing today, but I wrote the above, and (before having problems sleeping) I wrote the following on a social networking site, in response to a friend posting the attached link with a condescending comment.  Perhaps readers believe this shows my political views or perhaps readers will see this as me playing devil's advocate, in either case, I do not intend for this blog to be about politics, and am simply using this to show that even in small quantities, such as social networking sites, I am still writing (and doing so in a manner I take pride in).

The Story

The idea of this is flawed on so many levels. He was taking from the top to add only to the bottom. So much of what we have today is based upon the work of those that came before us, like computers, the internet, calculators, refrigerators. Having these things did not diminish the lives of those that came before us, nor did it cost them anything. They were not paying time to create these things, they were investing their time in the community as a whole. It wasn't just the homes of Lewis Pasteur and Nikola Tesla that became better places to live, but also those around them.
Knowledge is not a finite resource, to be given to one it does not need to be taken from another. It is like a flame, by which you may light many candles, and yours does not dim any more than it would have.

There are many finite things that do not work for sharing, of course. Time is one of the largest. You can't have 1 doctor with 3000 patients. Actual mineral resources also can't be shared evenly on a large scale, but that is why scientists are looking into better fuel sources, such as solar and electric power. And though insight can be given, that does not mean it is listened to. As the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." But each generation leans a little further left, until it becomes so far left that the whole scale tips, making the old middle the new right.
Yes, there have been problems, many times, in history where the youth have been misled, and their naivety was preyed upon by their elders. That's why things like racism still exist in the world. But in the larger scheme of things, going left tends to be better for humanity.