Here’s my third of eight installments in preparation for NaNoWriMo 2011, presented in its raw and unedited format for all to see.

Also, I have decided to raise money this year for NaNoWriMo and the Office of Letters and Light to support their efforts in encouraging writers both young and old. So, I am asking you, my readers, to sponsor my writing effort this year.

If you head over to my fundraising page at StayClassy and help me reach my goal of $250, I will post my NaNoWriMo effort on my website on 1 December 2011. Help me double my goal, and I will post the NaNoWriMo story plus a completed version of the story of which my preview vignettes will become a part on 1 January. If we go beyond even double, I will find something else cool to do for you.

NaNoWriMo Preview #3

Racing time

By Dennis L Hitzeman

 

Kevin sat on a park bench taking quick sips from his can of energy drink without really thinking about what he was doing. The thought that he was sitting on a park bench made him laugh out loud because the last time he had done something like that he’d been about twelve. Then he looked around to see if anyone of the half dozen other people in the park noticed his outburst, and the nervousness and sipping set in again.

Once Ten had locked in his hardened channel, Kevin had kind of freaked out. He found himself locked into some kind of enclave and his whole connection was somehow inside of it. All of his data and feeds was still there, accessible and manipulable, but he knew from a dozen quick checks that he had simply vanished off the net like all the other people in his cell.

He tried for at least an hour to figure a way out of the hard channel, but it might as well of been the ultramax prison they sent all the terrorists to, because there was no way out. So, he did the next thing that came to mind. He disconnected and walked away.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been offline, let alone walked outside. His apartment was hardly in an archology—he couldn’t afford downtown—but it did have an indoor track he could walk if he wanted the rapid serve did just as well as indoor shopping centers.

Of course, he wasn’t really offline either. His wireless connection continued to monitor all his scripts and bots and feeds, though he thought it was strange that his hardened prison still allowed his harvesters to run. Maybe Ten didn’t need another mouth to feed.

Nevertheless, this was the most disconnected he had been… since college at least. In a way, it felt kind of good.

Kevin’s revelry was broken by the tickle of a private channel request. Inside his prison?

“Yes?”

It was Ten. “Where are you? No wait, are you wireless?”

Kevin’s leg started to bounce. “Yeah, why?”

“Shut it off.” Ten said.

“What a second,” Kevin said. “You’ve already got me locked up–”

“Shut it off now!”

Kevin didn’t have time to reply. Instead, his wireless connection fuzzed, jolted, and was gone. He jerked at its sudden absence like someone had just hit him in the head and let out a little yelp.

“What the…” he heard himself saying.

About the same time, a white van skidded to a halt on the street, and several people piled out the back, wearing the tell-tale blue jump suit uniforms of some task force or another. They were joined moments later by two men in suits from a non-descript black sedan. Kevin thought he was going to wet himself.

One of the blue-suiters held something in the air, and Kevin knew it had to be a sniffer. His heart thundered so loud he was surprised they couldn’t hear it.

He squeaked when someone sat down beside him on the bench with a heavy thump. The bum reeked of alcohol and some other smells he couldn’t quite identify.

“Are you high?” the bum asked.

“What?” Kevin said. “No!”

“Then why were you using your wireless just now?”

Kevin about fell over. “Ten?”
The bum laughed. “Hardly.”

“This is just nuts,” Kevin said. “Who are you then?”

“Right now, I’m the man saving your life,” the bum said, handing him a paper wrapped bottle, “before it gets hauled off to some dark corner of the world and rezzed, so maybe you could calm down and act like your drinking from that bottle until our friends over there get bored and go look somewhere else for you.”

Kevin tipped the bottle toward his lips and noticed that the package contained only the top of a bottle. Just inside, there was a flex screen.

Read this very carefully, Kevin. This is not some sort of a game or something. You are the only surviving member of your cell. The rest got popped yesterday. I am not sure how you survived, but that shows some skill, which is why I am going to try to help you. But, you have to do exactly what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, or you’re done. Got it?

Kevin didn’t know what else to do but nod.

Ok, good. Your friend is going to leave once the heat gets bored. When all of them are gone, I want you to find a coffin motel and open the bag. There will be more instructions after that.

He felt the bum get up and start to shuffle away and at the same time noticed that the car and the van were headed down the road. He jumped up from the bench and headed toward the nearest bus stop, his heart pounding in his ears and his mind racing to try to figure out what he had gotten himself into.

 

Vladimir opened the door so hard it rebounded off the wall and back into him, which made him that much more angry. When he left the club, he’d been terrified, but the train ride back had tempered his fear and replaced it with a kind of rage he hadn’t felt in a long time.

The rest of his team looked at him with wide eyes and hands poised over their weapons, and Vladimir realized he had also almost gotten himself shot. He wondered if that wouldn’t have been a better outcome at that point.

Alexi peaked her head around the corner from the kitchen. “Vlad, that kind of think is likely to get you killed if you keep it up. I take it the news is not good.”

“We’re not getting paid?” Anatoly said.

Vladimir carefully closed the door. “Yes, we are getting paid. No, the news is not good. But before anything else, we need to pack it up. We’re headed for the dacha.”

The rest of the crew scrambled to start packing up their equipment and gather their belongings. Alexi put her hand on her hip. “Wait! What? Nobody said anything about the dacha. What’s going on?”

Vladimir sighed and leaned against the door. He should have never brought her into this. “We have to at least change location, golubushka, before I can explain any more. We may have to do this again before it’s all done, but I will do my best to explain once we’re on our way.”

Alexi glared at him and threw the towel she had in her other hand toward the counter. He knew how she hated the country, but he had no choice. Maybe he could send her to her mother’s.

“Don’t even think about dumping me on my mother,” she said as she disappeared into their bedroom. “I’m with you on this, even if it means the dacha.”

Then she slammed the door. Someone in the apartment below them bellowed something unintelligible followed by a very intelligible string of curses probably directed at them.

“She’s going to get us killed, Vlad,” Anatoly said.

“That might be better,” Vladimir said.

 

Kevin sat in the booth of the restaurant picking at his food. It had been a tumultuous few days that found him traveling half way across the country by bus to wait for a mysterious contact to meet him at the place he now sat, proudly announcing itself as “Bunny’s Hasty Tasty, a Dayton Institution.”

He tried to avoid eye contact and found himself longing for his connection to the net. It had been four days since he’d last been online, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Somehow Ten, or someone, had managed to erase his security IDs from the net, and unless he was going to brute force his way back on, there wasn’t an access point anywhere that would accept his connection.

Someone slid into the booth across from him, and he was surprised to see what he might have mistaken for a very young man except for the gray in his hair and day old beard. Somehow, he knew he was in the presence of the master.

“Ten, I assume?” Kevin said.

“I’m glad you followed my instructions,” Ten said. “This had the potential to get very ugly for you.”

“Look, what is this all about anyway,” Kevin said, hoping he might finally get some insight into what he had gotten himself into.

Ten shook his head. “Do you really want to know? I mean, really, Kevin. You’re a privateer, right? I’m helping you because you helped me and I know you didn’t sign on for these kinds of consequences. We’re both making the best of a bad situation, but do you really want to know why?”

“Yes, I think I do,” Kevin said. He wasn’t sure why he said it, yet he knew he meant it. He did want to know. He wanted to know about the attack against the Core and about their attack against the Core’s attackers. He wanted to know why it seemed like there were a hundred federal agents looking for him now. He wanted to know who Ten was and what he was up to.

Then he realized that, more than anything else, he wanted to know how to be like Ten, doing something that seemed to matter, instead of harvesting his living off bots committing identity theft.

“Well, I guess I didn’t read you wrong,” Ten said, “but it’s a whole lot more complicated than spilling the beans on everything just yet.”

“I figured,” Kevin said. “What first?”

“First, you finish your lunch and I eat mine, then we get you set up somewhere more comfortable than a coffin motel.”

 

Here’s my second of eight installments in preparation for NaNoWriMo 2011, presented in its raw and unedited format for all to see.

Also, to assuage any fears of cheating, this is not part of the story I will be writing for the actual event, although to prove that fact I offer you a challenge: I have decided to fund raise for NaNoWriMo this year, so if you head over to my page at StayClassy and donate and I reach my goal of $250, I will post my NaNoWriMo effort on my website on 1 December 2011. Help me double my goal, and I will post the NaNoWriMo story plus a completed version of the story of which my preview vignettes will become a part sometime on 1 January. If we go beyond even that, I will find something else cool to do.

NaNoWriMo Preview #2

Woven from the same cloth

By Dennis L Hitzeman

As they walked back toward the house, Dean couldn’t help but notice Cantril glancing nervously at Andy and Chuck, wondering how to detach himself from the two locals so he could have his Big Talk with Dean.

When they got to the house, he took matters into his own hands, clasping them both by the shoulders and taking them out of earshot of Cantril.

“Why don’t you guys head over to the bunk house and Ruben will find you some tea and a place to wait until me and Cantril are done with our talk.”

Andy cast him a sidelong glance. “This is trouble…. Colonel, and I thought we had a deal.”

Dean laughed. “Don’t go all “colonel” on me, Andy. You guys forget how old I am and how young you are, and this has nothing to do with our deal or anything else you know about. DIS doesn’t give a rats ass about unlicensed sweet corn and besides, everyone knows we’d all be starving without farms like mine. This is about something else from a long, long time ago, and I’m certain we’ll resolve it shortly.”

Andy glanced at Chuck and Chuck shrugged. “Ok, Dean, but you’re going to have to tell us about the whole “colonel” thing.”

“We’ll see,” Dean said.

Inside, he found Dean fidgeting at the kitchen table. At least Melissa was in town for the day so he wouldn’t have to explain any of this to her with Cantril there. He took his time calling down to the shop to roust the boys to finish up the planting for him while he made coffee and offered some to Cantril when he finally sat down across from him.

“Real Columbian?” Cantril said across his mug. “I thought that was a felony.”

Dean shrugged. “It’s only a felony if the government can afford to throw you in jail for doing it. Everyone knows it’s renegades like me that are keeping everything from coming apart these days. But you didn’t come half way across the country to debate felonious coffee with me, Agent Cantril. So, let’s have it.”

Cantril reached into his jacket and pulled out a flexscreen. It flickered to life and showed the first page of a dossier on a man named Ryan Altren.

“Do you know this man?” Cantril asked.

Dean shook his head. “Nope.”

“Colonel Whiteman, I don’t think I have to remind you that lying to a federal agent is a felony that is quite enforceable,” Cantril said.

Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair. “And I don’t think I need to remind you, Agent Cantril, that your bosses didn’t send you half way across the damned country to threaten an old military man gone hippy with a dossier of someone he’s never seen. So, let’s stop playing gumshoe detective versus eccentric information mine and get to the point, shall we?”

Cantril paused for a long time before he answered. “Alright, Colonel, but I do need to remind you that your non-disclosure agreement and security clearance are still valid.”

Dean nodded. The boy could leave the farm, but the farm never left the boy.

Cantril continued, “Yesterday at 1530, agents as of yet unknown enemy launched what is probably the most sophisticated attack we’ve ever seen against the Core. They briefly compromised two nodes, and there’s reason for us to believe they may have succeeded in additional exploits we have yet to discover.”

“And so why do you think I might know anything about this?”

“Mr. Altren was one of the biohackers for Bione,” Cantril said.

Dean laughed in spite of himself. Now, that was a memory from a long, long time ago.

“Agent Cantril, that was twenty two years ago. I didn’t exactly keep up on things after I left, and just because Altren might be a restorationist doesn’t mean I know who he is.”

Cantril looked a little crestfallen. And a little desperate. “Sir, for all intents and purposes, the attack yesterday constituted an act of war, yet we don’t know who we’re at war against or why. I know we’re grasping at straws, but we need something to work with.”

Dean was surprised at the man’s candor. They were desperate and they knew it. And he’d told them twenty years ago it was going to come to something like this.

“What’s in this for me?” he said because he knew there was.

“I have no idea where it’s coming from,” Cantril said, “but they’re offering you a blanket exemption, you and all your associates, if you can help us.”

Dean grunted. Things must be serious if they were that desperate. He would have really rather thought about it, even talked things over with Melissa, but he knew he didn’t have the time. Somewhere in him, some of that old patriotism still lived, and whoever might be behind it, they couldn’t afford another version of the events that brought him into the military to begin with.

“Give me two days and I will call you.”

He sighed. The fall crops were never going to get planted at this rate.

 

Vladimir sat at the bar and twirled his drink in his hand as the music thundered in the background and girls did their thing on the stage behind him. He was never comfortable in those kinds of places on the best of days, and this was not among the best. Yet, his contact had insisted, so there he was.

He hardly noticed when the slight figure took the seat beside him until the face beneath the ganglander hat spoke to him.

“Alexander sends his regrets,” a feminine voice said, “but as you might imagine, he is very busy at the moment.”

It took Vladimir a moment to realize it was Natalia sitting next to him, followed by the realization things must be far worse than he thought. Vladimir never sent Natalia out alone, and never to a place like this.

“I do not think this is the best place to talk” he said.

She shrugged. “It’s as good as anywhere.”

“We did what we said we would do,” he began, launching into the defense he had rehearsed for the entire train ride there, “but we were never warned of this kind of counter attack.”

Natalia waved him off as her drink arrived. “This was none of your doing, Vladimir. Alexander wanted me to assure you of this.”

“What happened then?” Vladimir said. “We had no information that they possessed this kind of capacity.”

“It seems there was another player in the game we did not anticipate,” she said. “We discovered the source of his operations and ended his attack, but we discovered nothing more. That’s what we need you for now, Vladimir.”

He felt his heart thundering in his ears, but he ignored the sick feeling and the vertigo. He was in far too deep to get out now. Maybe he had always been in too deep.

“What then?” he said. “I agreed to help you with what was done, nothing more.”

Natalia laughed. “Did you really think it would be that easy? Or clean?”

Vladimir gripped the bar. “What do you want from me then?”

“The cells used to launch the counter attack were nothing. Script kiddies, amateurs, and common criminals,” she said, “but someone was controlling them, and that someone is gifted beyond anything I can imagine.”

Vladimir could hear the green tinge to her voice, “So where did the attack come from, then? Perhaps we could just…”

“We need to figure out where he is,” she said, casting him a sidelong glance, “because he is off net.”

“What? I don’t understand,” he said. “How could he launch such an attack if he is off the net?”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, the green glowing bright. “How indeed? If we find him, we find out how. And if we find out how, then we will be far more successful than we already have been. How glorious will that be?”

Vladimir’s unease grew and for the first time he understood he was in far deeper than he could have imagined.

 

The crunching of the gravel under the tires had a mesmerizing effect on Dean, more so than any form of meditation ever had. It had been years since he’d traveled up that old, winding lane, and though their parting had been amicable, the thought of being there again filled him with a little apprehension.

The lane eventually gave way to what was recognizable as a tree-lined driveway and finally passed through a high, grassy embankment into an enclave of buildings that clearly belonged to a farm.

Larry was on his way out to meet him before he even parked.

“Dean, old friend, it’s been far too long,” Larry said, engulfing him in a gigantic bear hug. “But I figured if you were going to come out this way again, it would be now.”

Dean gave his friend a wry smile. “They’ve talked to you too, then?”
“Me? Oh, heck no,” Larry said with a laugh. “But unlike you I haven’t unplugged from the old world, so I can still keep tabs on what’s going on.”

Inside, Larry offered Dean a seat in what Larry ostensibly called his library. In reality, the place was part library, part command center, and part workshop. And it was all Larry.

“So what do you know about what’s going on?” Dean said as he took the seat and the neat scotch his friend offered.

“Well, the middle of yesterday afternoon, someone launched a hellish attack against the Core.” Larry said. “It took down two nodes, maybe breached a third, and everyone seems to agree the attack was designed to deliver some kind of payload. But, right in the middle of the attack, the attackers got attacked, and the first attacker’s network got pretty much torn apart, so who can say if they were able to deliver their payload.”

“Wait, what? The attackers network got taken down?” Dean said. “By who?”

“Now that’s the strangest part,” Larry said with a shrug. “Nobody seems to know. The first attackers counter attacked and the second attacker’s network just seemed to evaporate.”

“But who?” Dean said again. “The government? The consortium? The alliance? Somebody has to have at least a speculation.”

Larry shrugged and spread his hands. “The consensus on the usual channels is “a previously unknown third party.””

“Well, this just gets more and more peculiar,” Dean said. “Ok, next question. Have you ever heard of a Ryan Altren?”

Larry’s eyebrows shot up, and if Dean hadn’t known better, he would have sworn his friend’s face went a little pale. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that’s what the Feds asked me about when they visited yesterday,” Dean said. “Apparently, they’re looking for this Altren in conjunction with their investigation into yesterday’s events, and they seemed to think I might know something about him because he was one of the biohackers that went off the reservation from Bione.”

“Are you sure you want to be doing this, Dean,” Larry said. “I mean, after all, what you told me before is that you’d sworn off the whole tech thing altogether.”

Now Dean was surprised. “Larry, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that you’re already neck deep in this somehow.”

Larry shook his head. “Nope, I’m just an observer like everyone else, Dean, as much as I might want to be more. No, the problem is that this Ryan Altren you’re asking about was just here this morning.”

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