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Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I
This is a story about the search for the Mad Bomber, although only kind of. More accurately, this story is a composite of little things that have captured my memory about the case, phrases, names, things, concurrent events, that are tangential but, to me, essential. In this story, an FBI agent is investigating a small town in upstate New York during WWII, a time in which the bomber had suspended his activities, out of a sense of patriotism. Things turn out to be far stranger than expected, however, as a cult-like entity operating itself as the Consolidated Edison power company has taken over the town.

Self-critique begins here, if you value going in blind: I have a feeling that there are serious structural and pacing issues with this story, and I have struggled with them. I have tried my best to eradicate indulgence, but I have a sense there's still some to be found. I also think that there may be some thematic considerations that people will disapprove of, and likely reasonably so- as a schizotypical author, this is also something I grapple with.




quote:

As the headlights of his 1941 Chevy Deluxe swept the blacktop, Roger’s thoughts kept returning to the letter.

“Dear Agent,

We would like to thank you for your tireless efforts to apprehend the bomber. However, this is a critical moment in the history of the world; it is our belief that all efforts, at home and abroad, must be focused upon the war. We wish to meet the madman’s call for armistice with a show of clemency. Now is the time for patriotism and vigilance, not for creating panic. We humbly request that you suspend your investigation until the nation is at peace.

May God smile forever on the United States of America.

The Consolidated Edison Company”

A week prior, an undetonated explosive device had been discovered, sewn into a seat at the Chopin Theater. It’d been there, dormant, for over three years. Forensic analysis of the bomb had revealed that the gravel used to pack the explosive had contained trace amounts of copper. Within New York, that sediment could only have come from St. Lawrence County. And in St. Lawrence was the small town of Ogdensburg, home to a Consolidated Edison hydroelectric plant.

Justice never waited in the wings, and no cloak of war could obscure the law.

Over the hours of driving, the rolling hills and winding roads of upstate New York had lulled Roger into a dreaming state. When the Blue Heaven diner appeared around the bend, it marked the first sign of life in miles to have disrupted the lunar landscape of the interstate. He welcomed it.

Inside, the diner was nearly vacant. Behind the counter, the cook greeted him with a nod. At the other end of the room, a young man sat in a booth, smoking a cigarette and staring at the table. Roger took a seat at the counter. “I’ll have a cup of coffee, please.”

The cook eyed him. “Ten cents.”

Reaching back into his pocket, Roger took his wallet in hand. “Could you make change for a dollar?” He asked, placing the note onto the counter.

The cook frowned, turning his eyes up from the dollar back to Roger. “Sorry mister. We don’t take green money, here.”

Roger looked up at him. “Pardon?” The man from the booth had gotten up, and now stood beside them. He placed a coral pink banknote upon the counter.

“This one’s on me, friend. You’re not from around here, right?” He smiled. “I knew it. Come on over and sit with me, will ya?”

Roger took a seat across from his sponsor. The man wore khaki pants, polished black shoes, and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbow. His hair was sandy blonde, his eyes a cool blue. There was something wrong with them; it was like he couldn’t see you, as if he were looking over your shoulder instead of at you. He looked back at the counter, before explaining, “They only take Conners, here. Same as everywhere in town.”

“It’s company scrip?”

“They say it’s to keep the town money local, or something like that.” He bit his bottom lip, looking away for a moment. “You’re with the government, aren’t you?”

Roger produced his badge. “My name is Roger Keyes. I’m with the Bureau.”

The man rocked back and forth, clasping his hands together. “Oh, I knew it when I seen you. I knew you’d come- I’ve been here, waiting, because everybody that comes into town stops here first.” He raised his voice. “I’ve been here every day, haven’t I Frank?”

“Day and night”, answered the cook.

He leaned in closer, lowering his tone once more. “You came looking for the bomber. And you’ve found him. My name is George Metesky, sir, and I’d like to commit myself to justice.”

Roger took a sip from his coffee, looking to George from over the porcelain rim of the mug. He’d been on the case for years, and to suddenly have the perpetrator land so neatly in his lap- it didn’t seem right. “You’ve been doing an adequate job of covering your tracks this far- seems to me like you didn’t want to be found. Why the change of heart?”

“When I sent that letter- about the war- I did mean it, you know. It was just a ceasefire. But after a while, I started to realize- I am very sick, sir. I’ve done terrible things, and I need to be made to pay. It was like I couldn’t see it, before. Like a haze.”

Roger studied him. He tried to match the neurotic young man before him with the explosions that’d ripped through flesh and bone, and sown terror in the hearts of a city. “You know, we first went looking for you at the Hellgate plant, in the city. We were so certain you were there, or had been there, that we turned the place from top to bottom. I don’t think anybody ever thought that you might be hiding so far out.”

He never took his eyes away from George, as he spoke. There it was. There was a fleeting touch of amusement in his eyes, a glimmer of condescension. He was trying to conceal it, but there was a touch of theater in his conduct. The way Metesky alternated between a saccharine manner and a contrite, almost hangdog mode, suggested that he had no conception of the gravity of his own actions. This was the killer having his bow, attempting to close out his performance on his own terms.

“You had a grudge with Con Ed.”

“They hurt me. I gave years of my life to them, and, and there was an accident. My workstation exploded. I breathed in something bad. George leaned over the table. “I was never the same. They kicked me out on my rear end. Wouldn’t pay my worker’s comp. Ignored me when I wrote to the higher-ups. They pressured my coworkers to perjure against me in court.

“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. We’ve got laws for that kind of thing, we’ve got processes. There are channels to go through. You realize you can’t kill a company with a bomb, George. You only hurt the workers- men like yourself. And besides, what’s that got to do with bombing theaters and phone booths?”

“Something broke in me, Mr. Keyes- that wrath that welled up inside me, it just kept on coming. I struck out at everyone.” He took a moment to regain his composure, drawing a measured breath. “After I die, tell them to open my head. You’ll find that a little part of my brain is withered and dead.”

Roger watched George from across the table. He studied the man, who curled in toward himself as he rubbed granules of sugar between his fingertips. Roger tried to picture him sitting in a workshop and wiring bombs, arranging newspaper clippings into raving threats. He tried and failed to comprehend what could drive someone to lash out in such a ghoulish way. George picked up a fork, and began to poke at a power outlet with the prongs of it.

“You know, there’s two kinds of electric power: alternating current and direct current. Nowadays, almost everything’s on AC. But there are still some places that use DC, mostly in Europe, but even out here in the sticks. It’s backwards. It doesn’t function with the rest of the grid, it’s volatile, it outputs strange voltage.” Roger paused. “Maybe with the war, with all those American boys going over with American products, radios, hotplates- maybe DC’ll finally be wiped out.”

Roger had heard enough. There’d be plenty of time for questioning. “Well, Mr. Metesky. I think it’s time to go. Would you stand, please?” Roger stood, and George followed.

Roger took the set of handcuffs from the front-right pocket of his overcoat, fixing them upon George’s wrists. “Just a formality, Mr. Metesky. You’re being placed under arrest by the power of the federal government. You’ll be rendered to Jefferson Market to await trial. Do you understand the charges being brought against you?”

As Roger spoke, he ran his hands over George’s body, searching his pockets and patting down his shirt in a cursory routine. “Yes, sir,” answered George.

Roger stood behind George and began to walk him towards the door, when something caught his eye. Behind the counter, the cook was speaking into a CB radio set. “Are you there, Karen? That milk delivery should be here before sunup, so be ready to put it away when it gets here, alright?”

Roger looked over to where the radio had been put, by the glass-domed cake plates. “That’s a pretty serious kit you’ve got, there. Something wrong with the telephone?”

“Mhm,” Frank stuck his thumb out, as if to indicate Ogdensburg. “Back in town, the copper miners have been on strike. Ugly business. Hole up in the mine through the day, won’t let anybody in. Only come out at night to raise hell. Some of ‘em cut the phone lines a while back.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Why would they do anything they do? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Roger pursed his lips. “Well, have a nice evening.”

George smiled. “So long, Frank.”

Frank gave another nod. “Take care of yourself, George.”

Roger left the diner with George in custody, settling the mechanic into the back of the car. The engine rumbled to life, and the car turned back onto the interstate. After they passed an off-ramp, George became unsettled. Sitting up, he leaned forward, towards the front seats. “What’s the matter? You said I was going to the city.”

“You will be. But I’d like to take a look around town, before we leave. I’d just like to see things for myself.”

The color drained from George’s cheeks. He shook his head, several times. “No, we can’t. You’ve got to turn around, I want to go straight to NYC.”

Roger glanced over his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Metesky? I thought you’d be pleased; I’m going to be questioning Con Ed.”

George shook his head again. “That’s all well and good, mister, but can it wait? I’m not going back there. You come back without me. I won’t let you put me in county! You hear?”

“Mr. Metesky, if you’re concerned about your safety, I can promise that you’ll remain under my protection.”

George became sullen. He slumped back against the bench seat, resting his shoulder against the door and gazing out the window, cheek pressed against the glass. Not twenty minutes later, he spoke up again. “Hey, mister, could we pull over a minute?”

“What’s the idea here?”

“I don’t mean anything funny by it- I’ve just got to, you know.”

“We’re getting close to town, can’t you wait a bit?”

“Not if you mind me pissing in your car. I’m all- anxious, now.”

Roger frowned, steering the Chevy towards the edge of the road. He unlocked the rear door on George’s side. “The cuffs stay on. Go out in front of the car twenty paces and take care of your business.”

“Thanks,” answered George, following the agent’s instructions. Roger leaned against the hood of the car, eyeing his charge keenly. There wasn’t much sense in stealing off into the woods. The only place he could’ve conceivably run to would’ve been Ogdensburg, after all.

George stood by the edge of the road, silhouetted by the beams of the headlights. He undid his fly, rolling his shoulders and beginning to urinate. Finishing up, the blonde man looked back over his shoulder for a moment. Suddenly, he pivoted on his heels. The blade of a switch-knife sprung from between his clasped hands with a click, and he flew towards Roger.

Roger was quicker, and he caught George on the cheek with a right hook. Metesky took a spill, scrambling like a wounded animal across the pavement as Roger drew his gun. Writhing and twisting, George punctured both of the car’s front tires, the sharp hiss of expelled air sounding out as the front end of the Chevy dipped lower.

Roger reached down to grab a fistful of George’s shirt, hauling him up and placing his .38 Special flush with the man’s temple. George dropped the knife.

“What’s this all about, you maniac?”

George sneered. Staring into in the Chevy’s headlights, his pupils constricted. His upper lip bulged in a spot; he was tonguing at something. His adam’s apple bobbed. A moment later, George’s body went slack in Roger’s grip, his head tilting back and rolling to one side.

Roger stared hard into George’s vacant face. He tried to make sense of it. The prospect of returning to Ogdenson had set off something wild in Metesky, that much was clear. But there was something else. He’d swallowed poison. That involved some degree of premeditation. What’s more, the bomber- it was said- did not fit the self-destructive profile.

Roger let George’s body lie. His tires were shot; he’d have to walk into town. In the east, an oily red glow was seeping into the horizon, and in the west, under cover of night, was Ogdensburg. There, two great pillars of light pierced the sky.

When Roger finally arrived in Ogdensburg, the sun had risen. The town was more than sleepy, it was dead. The streets were vacant. The windows, all clad in lingering shadow, appeared as rows of stopped mouths. Slowly, Roger made his way towards the river, and the hydroelectric plant.

Beside the power plant, there was a single-screen theater, the New World Cinema. Lining the outer wall of the theater, streaming into the box office, were men in near identical dress: tweed suits, dark brown ties, and polished leather shoes. They leaned against the wall, smoking and talking amongst themselves, and their eyes tracked Roger as he came into view.
Roger scanned down the line. “A little early for a sold-out show, isn’t it?” He turned his eyes up towards the marquee- Dillinger.

One of the men answered, a cigarette wagging between his lips. “Not much to do, in a little town like this. Sold out ‘round the clock.”

Another added, “It’s a special thing, cinema. A whole community gathered together to substantiate a dream, a world suspended in a beam of light- that’s prayer. That’s more powerful than prayer.” The two big spotlights he’d seen in the night had been left out front. It seemed like a lot of pageantry, for a one-screen theater.

The first suit chimed in again. “You’re with the FBI, right? We saw it in the paper- copper in the bomb sediment- so it figures you’d come here.”

“That’s a keen observation.”

Pleased with his deduction, the suit flashed his pearly teeth. “Well, us company boys are good citizens. We admire the American government. So you know you’ve got our full cooperation, all the way.” The American government. The wording implied foreignness, but the accent was corn-fed with an inflection of James Cagney.

“You’re all Edison, is that it? Matter of fact, I was wondering if I might have a look around the plant.”

“You think the bomber might still be within the company?” He paused. “Well, go ahead. I’m sure they won’t give you any hassle.”

Agent Keyes was given a tour of the facility. Though it seemed like business as usual, two things stuck out to him. The first was that Con Ed didn’t seem to have an understanding of blue collar labor; even on the plant floor, suits were handling the work. It appeared as if the Ogdenson plant had some isolated, estranged company culture.

Then, there was the second matter. He didn’t need to understand the readings on the output meters to figure it out. He addressed the foreman- another suit- with his concerns. “A plant like this has to be generating a lot of excess power. What’s the use in having a facility like this in the middle of nowhere? Ogdenson must be the only place on the whole grid.”

The foreman leaned against the rail, overlooking the turbine shafts. “It’s true, we output far more than the town can use. But what you have to understand is, Consolidated Edison is always looking ten, even twenty years into the future. Believe you me, when the boys come back from the war, they’re going to want families of their own, houses of their own. All kinds of towns will be springing up in places like this. They’re going to need electricity, and Con Ed will be there for them.”

Roger changed his tack. “One of the locals was telling me there’s a strike going on at the mine.”

The foreman went quiet for a moment, looking out over the plant floor. “That’s right. Fortified themselves up in the tunnels and won’t come out for anything. The mining company is owned by a subsidiary of Edison, so they must’ve thought they could strangle us by cutting off the supply of copper for wiring. Naturally, we just started shipping it in from elsewhere.”

“How long’s this been going on, and over what?”

“Few months now. Hard to say what caused it- communism, or anarchism, or something, got into their ears. It’s like they all changed overnight.”

“Who’s bringing them food?”

The foreman turned his head to Roger, then, and gave him a long look over. He shrugged.

“Have you thought about diverting the river? Maybe you could flood them out.”

“Are you a strike breaker, Mr. Keyes, or are you a detective?” The foreman’s lips tightened. “Forgive me. But maybe it’s best that you leave our town’s problems to us, and focus on catching your killer. Mr. Keyes, are you satisfied that we don’t have a resident bomb maker in our plant?”

Roger sucked his teeth.

“If it isn’t out of line for me to make a suggestion, sir, we’d been thinking that maybe- we don’t see how, but it seems like the only way- those bombs are going through the mail, into the city.”
It was a preposterous idea. It would mean that more than one person was involved in the construction and placement of the bomb units, which flew in the face of their whole investigation. But George Metesky was lying dead by the grill of his Chevy Deluxe, and that meant that anything was on the table. And besides that, Roger still had some questions about Ogdensburg.

Roger left the plant. Outside, men were still lined up outside the theater. Some of them smoked, some picked their teeth with toothpicks, and others shoved their hands in their suit pockets. All of them regarded him.

After he’d walked a few blocks, Agent Keyes was stopped by a sound of commotion. It sounded like a struggle, like feet shuffling against floor and a shelf being overturned. Nearby, a house’s front door was ajar. Roger rushed to intercede.

Inside, the living room was dim; heavy velvet curtains blocked out the sun. A woman in a floral print dress stood clutching a vase in one hand. At her feet, a Con Ed man was on his knees, his back to her. He’d curled in on himself, rubbing at his eyes- there was something black leaking from them.

“You loving bitch!” He coughed and spit. More of the black stuff was in his mouth. Having given up on clearing his eyes, the man scratched at the floor, skittering towards the door. “You’ll get yours soon!”

Roger moved to block the door, and the woman snarled at him. “Let him out!”

Obliging her, he stepped aside. The company man climbed to his feet and stumbled into the light. Roger looked over the room. A cabinet had been overturned; there were books, an electric lantern, and the contents of an ashtray scattered across the floor.

“What was that?”

She scoffed. “What do you think, dick? They all want the same thing- every one of them, every day.” There was a feral look in her eyes. “I have written a hundred and forty one letters to your department and the president, telling you how those men use us, and I’ve not had a single reply. A few bombs go off up in the city and you come running, of course, but you’re too late- you missed everything already.” She set the vase upon the coffee table. Her knuckles were white, the cords of her neck taut and bulging. Agent Keyes noticed, then, that her other sleeve was tied off at the elbow, hanging empty below the knot. “You missed it, detective. Not that you’d have done anything about it.”

Roger was certain that she was hysterical, but still, there was something in her words. “You have my word that I’ll pull up your reports personally, when I return to headquarters. But the reason I’m here today is regarding the bombs.”

Her thin lips pressed into a smile. “Are you still chasing those little things? They don’t come from anyone, you know. They grow into those places. They tear into those people because they can’t do anything else.”

Roger glanced towards the door. “What was that stuff you threw at him? Poison?”

She took a step back, away from the windows. “You can’t blame the mine boys for how they behave, detective. They don’t have any other option, either. They’d have liked to have played nice, but when the Edison thugs got through with them, there wasn’t anything left. Just an afterimage.” She stooped down to collect the books from the floor, brushing some of the ash from their pages.

“You should know that Consolidated Edison hasn’t escaped the Bureau’s attention. Why, I just came from the plant, and I’m not through yet, either.”

She looked up at him, her brow knit tight. “Don’t you understand? It’s already mutated! Maybe before, you could have done something- I told you how it was moving on its own- but what would you do now? Cut its head off? Arrest them all, try to lock it in a cage? Look at you- you’re in its belly already.” She pointed to the door. “Get out of my house, you dog.”

Roger did the only thing he felt he could; he went to the post office. It was near closing time when he’d arrived, and the sun filling the western sky with syrupy red-orange light. Outside of the little brick building, three postal trucks were parked, their windshields clogged with dead leaves.

Inside, the office was dim. The shade of a desk lamp had been turned on its side, projecting a too-bright shaft of light towards the door, and illuminating the dust motes in the air. The clerk was a small, withered man who’d been hunched over a shortwave radio, scanning intently through dead air. When the door opened, he turned his gaze upward.

“What do you want?”

“Good afternoon.”

“Not for long.”

The clerk was entombed on all sides by dust-choked parcels, stacked floor to ceiling. Behind him, there was a pile of blankets and a hot plate set on the floor. “My name is Roger Keyes, I’m with the Bureau. I’m in town regarding the NYC bomber case. The foreman at the hydro plant suggested that I take a look around.”

The clerk scoffed. “They’re bullshittin’ you. A few years ago, sure, they were all in a twist about screening all the packages. Every day they had a new theory. But they don’t care anymore.”

“What’d be in it for them, to feed me a line like that?”

“Who can say? They’re weird. The whole bunch of ‘em all came down at once, all from Hell Gate, the city plant. Fired everyone that worked at the town station. Bought up all the businesses, just to close ‘em down. It was either work the copper mine, or get out of town. Eventually, there were more of them than us. Those fuckers elected themselves sheriff, mayor, you name it. Just about the only place they couldn’t worm their way into was right here-on account of it’s a federal institution- so, they bullied everyone else into quitting. But not me.”

“You may be doing your country more of a service than you know.”

“That’s not it. I’ve got nowhere else to go. I can’t leave here, and I’m not working the mine. Not that anybody does, anymore.”

“What exactly’s going on with the strike?”

The postmaster shook his head. “Nobody comes around here anymore, and I try not to go out much myself. Those plant men give me the creeps. They never go anywhere alone, you know. When they talk to you, it’s like they’re not addressing you, but just- talking to the air.”

Roger didn’t like it, either. The way they’d worked to oust the population of the town confirmed his suspicions. The letter, their polished smiles, maybe even Metesky’s desperate gambit- all of it fit together as an attempt to buy Con Ed time. Time for what? Roger couldn’t fathom, but he was prepared to stake his career upon it to intercept them.
Roger produced his badge, holding it for the clerk to see. “Sir, under the authority of the United States government, I’ll need to requisition your car.” He’d have to get to somewhere that he could put a call through to the department. He’d have the plant taken apart, detain everyone involved.

The clerk pushed his keys across the counter. He looked to the dusty windowpane; the sun was sinking fast. “I’d be careful out there, mister. The strikers come out at night.”
Roger found the postmaster’s car, a blue-green Plymouth Roadking, parked beside the delivery trucks. He swept his hand across the windshield, clearing away the decaying leaves, before climbing into the driver’s seat and turning the ignition. The car rumbled to life, its headlights scattering the gathered darkness.

Pulling out onto the street, Roger wasted no time in leaving Ogdenson behind. However, there was something on the outskirts of town that gave him pause. A pickup was driving along the road, slowly, with a phalanx of men marching on either side of it. Roger killed the headlights, cruising at a distance behind the truck. When he felt he couldn’t approach any closer, he pulled over. Exiting the vehicle, he made his way on foot along a roadside ditch, moving quickly and quietly through the brush.

Agent Keyes heard voices in the night. The men were talking to each other, calling out to one another. Moving closer, he pushed some branches aside to get a better view of them. In the bed of the truck, powered by a portable generator, was a floodlight. The men wore the same suits he’d seen before, only they’d been altered. Now, each suit was wrapped in Christmas lights, and many of the men carried lanterns or wore miner’s caps. The phalanxes bristled with guns; Roger could see pistols, hunting shotguns, and even a Thompson submachine gun.

Roger had found himself outgunned in what he figured to be enemy territory. It was his turn to make a desperate bid, then. He’d return to the car and blow past them, hurtling towards the next town over. Roger let go of the brush, and with the rustling of leaves, the Edison gang became alert all at once.

“Movement in the ditch!” The floodlight turned upon Agent Keyes, light cutting through the leaves in dappled rays. “Get in there, don’t let the brush diffuse the beam! Isolate it!” called one man to the others, who were already bounding towards Roger in ranks of two. They pulled the brush apart, exposing Roger to the full, harsh light.

The men looked to one another, and after a moment’s pause, began to laugh. “Hey, detective! You’re just in time.”

Roger raised his hands above his head, but one of the suits clasped a hand to his back, patting him between the shoulders.

“What’s going on, here?” Roger asked.

“Ain’t it obvious? We’re strike breakers.”

The lantern men marched with Agent Keyes in tow, soon turning off onto the dirt road that led to the copper mine. Along the way, they called out to one another, discussing the Yankees, lauding Humphrey Bogart, and sharing anecdotes. The pace of conversation, the ritualistic call-and-response rhythm of it, made it seem as if they were averse to a moment’s quiet. Every now and then, they’d stop in unison. The spotlight swept from side to side, smaller beams spilling out in all directions, and the men braced their guns. They seemed more keenly attuned to it than himself, but even Roger could detect some uneasy presence lurking in his periphery, outside their ward of light.

“gently caress!” From the rear of the group, having fallen out of the bounds of their halo, came the voice of an Edison man. With the crack of a gunshot, a flashing bloom of light illuminated the suit. He’d fallen on his rear end, and as the men’s lights swept over him in criss-cross pattern, he could be seen working frantically to unjam his pistol. “poo poo- poo poo- poo poo!” When the lights converged again on his position, the man was nowhere to be seen. The procession lingered for a moment, a note of dread silence hanging in the air, before lurching forward once more. When Roger had first been spied the Con Ed battalion, he’d noted that there had been a dozen of them. As they drew closer to the copper mine, he counted only eight.

The truck stopped only once more. The sound of leaves and brush whipping about had alerted the suits, who began sweeping their lights about in that practiced way once more. Roger couldn’t get a read of where their phantom quarry was, or rather, he couldn’t make sense of it, as it seemed to be everywhere at once. In another moment, though, the lights converged, and there was the enemy.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood transfixed in the light. The striker wore a heavy miner’s coat, and in his gloved right hand he clutched a pick. It was what Roger might’ve expected, save for one detail; there was an eyeless sack affixed over the striker’s head, in the manner of a hangman.

“Got you, you son of a bitch!”

One of the suits looked back at Roger. “If you can get enough light on it, you can shift their valence- y’know, fix their shape.” One of the Edison men spread his feet, taking a firing stance and leveling the barrel of his Remington at the staggered figure. The striker’s shirt tore open in a lurid burst of buckshot and blood. “Then you can kill ‘em just like normal.”

One of the suits poured kerosene over the striker’s body and set it ablaze. They began their march again, and as he looked back at the pyre, Roger’s stomach turned.

“You think you can just erase what you’ve done out here, is that it?”

One of the Edison men spit at the ground. “Why don’t you shut your yap, agent, before I erase you? We were burdened with this.”

Outside of the mine, the foreman clung to the post of a set of floodlights as if it were driftwood in a turbulent sea. Five sets of lights formed a picket outside of the mine, but two of them had been smashed already. The darkness of the mine was impenetrable. It swallowed up the beams of the floodlights without yielding an inch.

The truck came to a stop, and the men fanned out to take positions around the mine’s entrance. Roger stared into the black maw of the cavern, but his eyes refused to adjust. They stood like that for the better part of an hour. The brisk conversation of the march had died out, and the only sound that remained was the occasional shifting of one’s body, or the adjustment of a weapon.

Roger did not utter another word. He then understood the strange men, their amalgam swagger, their clandestine work, and their quiet terror. These were apostates, working to stamp out the last vestiges of their sin, so that they could invert Heaven and make angels of themselves. He had to keep silent, for he would be their sole living witness.

At midnight, the lights in Ogdenson flickered. The floodlights, connected to the city grid, flickered as well. In that moment of absolute, abyssal darkness, it was not fear that swept through the company men, but elation. The lights returned. The foreman pushed off from the light post, striking his chest.

“It’s happening, now!” He shouted at the mine. “It’s sloughed off its winter skin! You’ll never comprehend its form!” Laughter rippled through the Edison men. “It’s over. Come and take us, if you want. It’s already awake.”

The lights went out again, leaving only the beam of the truck’s spotlight to guide them. Then, with a sizzling sound, even the spotlight cracked and went dead. Something erupted from the mine. A flood of cold liquid came vomiting forth, and swept them all away. Roger could feel himself being pulled by the swift current, until it stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

Agent Keyes was floating, submerged completely in chilling, black waters. He opened his eyes, but could not see a thing. Something was brushing against him- there were other bodies floating with him, and he could feel their hands, their legs, their faces pushing against him as they drifted. It was by this feeling that he came to realize that they were orbiting something. Some dense, throbbing shape had pulled them in, was keeping them suspended. His chest burned, aching for breath, and all he could do was to suck in a lungful of that inky stuff.

Roger was dropped abruptly from wherever he had been, landing in a painful sprawl upon the cool earth. His fingers gripped at the fresh summer grass, pulling it up in clumps as he hacked and coughed. His clothes were soaked through, hair sticking to his face. Opening his eyes again, Roger looked around. His eyes had adjusted to the night. Somehow, he was back at the mine, but now, he was alone. The air was charged and silent, thrumming with the configurations of atomic dead.

Still pulling in rasped breaths, Roger pushed himself onto his feet. His thoughts were shattered. The world had gone dark, and so he found himself drawn back, compelled towards the only thing on the horizon, the twin lights of the New World Cinema.

Agent Keyes made his way back along the road. Not long after he’d reached the main street, a convoy of trucks came roaring by. As they went, something on the side of the road suddenly burst into flames- he realized that it must have been the postmaster’s car. When the trucks passed, the strobes of their headlights dazzled him, his soaked clothing billowing and flapping in the wind. He turned to watch the convoy as it sped into the distance. Whatever he’d hoped to find, Roger knew, it had been on those trucks.

With no recourse, Roger resumed his trek into town. Save for the lights at the theater, Ogdenson had gone entirely black; even the streetlights had gone out. Having passed through that other place, Roger felt no fear of the strikers. He could not see them, but he could feel them. He was breathing them in.

Inside the New World Theater, there was a stillness that even the empty streets of Ogdenson couldn’t rival. A light, sweet smell laced each breath. Roger passed through the empty lobby, into the screening room. The projector had been left running, though the film canister had run out. A beam of light illuminated the screen, but produced no image.
The chairs had been stripped from the theater, leaving a large auditorium space. Here and there, ConEd men lay on their backs, their bodies strewn about like dolls. Successful in their mission, the faithful had swallowed poison.

Roger walked among the corpses. Those whose eyes were left open wore a look of clarity and serenity. The floor beneath them was scuffed with deep scrapes, suggesting that heavy equipment had been moved in and out of the theater space. On the western wall, heavy-duty cables, now disconnected, passed through a port from the hydroelectric plant. Scattered sparsely across the floor were shipping manifests; Roger spotted Hawaii, Italy, the Algiers, and India.

The detective couldn’t fathom what had transpired in the theater, in Ogdenson, under the stifling blanket of company rule. Whether the erasure of the town was the intent of the Edison men, a side effect, or merely a precaution, he couldn’t say. What work the theater had once done, he could not begin to imagine.
Only two things were clear: whatever had happened was perverse, as Consolidated Edison had made every effort to disguise it. And whatever their plan was, it was not over, and would not be contained. The work here was finished- the dead at his feet were compartmentalized men, true believers who knew only their task and neither the scope nor shape of the plan. Those on the trucks were beginning a diaspora. They’d be at the four corners of the earth before the end of the week. As the man at the mine had boasted, they would shed their skin, discard the husk of ConEd and become telecoms, airliners, and cola bottlers.

None of it meant a thing. Roger could not explain the dread that choked him. If asked to point to the scheme, he couldn’t. Even the memory of the evidence had been erased. Now, their poison would be spread across the world so thin, by so many vectors, that it would be untraceable. Would anybody realize that they, too, were becoming specters, or worse yet, clear-eyed agents of this malevolent thing?

It was as he’d been told. He’d arrived too late. Perhaps the bomber case had been the key to everything at one point, the clarion call. Now, he and the bomber- whoever or whatever he was- had come to an understanding. This, Roger reasoned, made him insane.

He did the only thing he could. Returning to the theater lobby, Roger picked up the phone. Though there was no tone, he dialed the operator and asked to be connected to the FBI headquarters.

“Please, put me through to Mr. Hoover immediately. It’s urgent.” His voice echoed, as if being thrown into a great, cavernous room. “Mr. Hoover, this is special agent Roger Keyes, field operative on the bomber case. I need you to listen carefully- I can’t explain myself right now.” There were other sounds in the telephone wire: endless, refracted halves of conversations, sobbing, screaming, and a dizzying chorus of unanswered hellos. “We have to put a halt on all commercial and civilian air transit. All units must be scrambled immediately- we must enlist volunteers, as well. All non-essential industries have to be frozen by order of the federal government, pending immediate investigation. There is a fifth column in America. I repeat, we must put a halt on all commercial and civilian transit. All units must be scrambled immediately…”

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Friedpundit
May 6, 2009

Merry Christmas Scary Wormhole!
What I love about this is the way the supernatural hides in the eaves, threatening to invade the story at any moment. You do a great job of throwing us for loops and creating a murky, slippery atmosphere that quivers in and out of reality. I don't have any major problems with your structure and pacing, but I can see where you're coming from. It's strange, not bad, but strange. The first half plays much more deliberate while the second half descends into hazy chaos. This could be bolstered a little more, but it works in the story's favor. Having Metesky die earlier is a structural gamble, but I think you successfully drop the other shoe in the back half and it works.
--
That all said, your dialogue is killin' ya. I respect you trying to keep it terse, but most of your characters are reduced to their major talking points. The flow of talk in unnatural, people jump directly from fairly standard small talk into fully formed ideologies. My least favorite example is this motherfucker:

quote:

Another added, “It’s a special thing, cinema. A whole community gathered together to substantiate a dream, a world suspended in a beam of light- that’s prayer. That’s more powerful than prayer.”

Some dude barges into a conversation on me like that, I'd spit in his face.
--
I think your biggest problem though is that we don't get a sense of who Roger is. Why is he doing this? What makes him so determined? I don't need or want his life story, but I need some grounding, attitude, personality. Roger's the most realistic thing in your world, and it's what I have to put my trust into. I hate this sentence:

quote:

Roger couldn’t fathom, but he was prepared to stake his career upon it to intercept them.

That's great that he's ready to do that, but I'm not feeling it.
--
One last note: The connection of George Metesky to all of this feel tenuous. I love this:

quote:

Now, he and the bomber- whoever or whatever he was- had come to an understanding. This, Roger reasoned, made him insane.
But ultimately, I don't know what their understanding is. Part of what hurts you here is you don't give much description of what the Mad Bomber has done, he's undersold. But ultimately I think with the thematic connection, while I can feel there's something there, I can't quite grasp it.

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I

Friedpundit posted:

What I love about this is the way the supernatural hides in the eaves, threatening to invade the story at any moment. You do a great job of throwing us for loops and creating a murky, slippery atmosphere that quivers in and out of reality. I don't have any major problems with your structure and pacing, but I can see where you're coming from. It's strange, not bad, but strange. The first half plays much more deliberate while the second half descends into hazy chaos. This could be bolstered a little more, but it works in the story's favor. Having Metesky die earlier is a structural gamble, but I think you successfully drop the other shoe in the back half and it works.
--
That all said, your dialogue is killin' ya. I respect you trying to keep it terse, but most of your characters are reduced to their major talking points. The flow of talk in unnatural, people jump directly from fairly standard small talk into fully formed ideologies. My least favorite example is this motherfucker:


Some dude barges into a conversation on me like that, I'd spit in his face.
--
I think your biggest problem though is that we don't get a sense of who Roger is. Why is he doing this? What makes him so determined? I don't need or want his life story, but I need some grounding, attitude, personality. Roger's the most realistic thing in your world, and it's what I have to put my trust into. I hate this sentence:


That's great that he's ready to do that, but I'm not feeling it.
--
One last note: The connection of George Metesky to all of this feel tenuous. I love this:

But ultimately, I don't know what their understanding is. Part of what hurts you here is you don't give much description of what the Mad Bomber has done, he's undersold. But ultimately I think with the thematic connection, while I can feel there's something there, I can't quite grasp it.

Hey, thanks for reading. You're spot on with all of this.

I have a lot of trouble writing characters and dialogue. This was amplified more, in this story, by the direction that I came at it from; the protagonist was pretty remote, when considering the inspiration of this story. He was a tool for the function of exploring what I wanted to, and as written, this is far too obvious. Even what I have now is a big overhaul from the carnival haunted house coaster that I had before.

I went over this story several times trying to provide Roger with more definition and direction. Here's what I would say about how he should be coming across in the story. Roger was conceived as something of a knight errant. He believes strongly in justice, but relies on intuition to discern what that means. Finding the bomber is his grail- to him, the bomber is unknowable chaos, selfish, animal evil. Roger believes that law is generally good, and that he is a conduit of law. When he meets Metesky in person, he feels some pity for him, but is repulsed by him. Metesky feels, or seems to feel, that the process of law has cripplingly failed him. Roger's response to this is to simply restate the law. Later, Roger is unconsciously compelled to offer his suggestions for suppressing the strikes, for restoring order and destroying dissidence, even when his advice is unwelcome and irrelevant.

Metesky, as written in the story, is meant to be a Con Ed decoy, whose purpose was to draw Roger out of town. When that failed- because of a nascent inkling of "actual justice" in Roger, that little part of all of us that balks at "big business" in a generic way- he disabled Roger however he could. I'm not sure if all of this is entirely clear, and I could see it seeming arbitrary if so. Metesky's connection with the Con Ed boys was clearer before (he had a brand that the rest of them had, which was revealed at the end- too late to be of real use). I thought I might rely on the signifier of his shined shoes, his manner of speech, and his illogical behavior to make this identity clear. (There is no real bomber to be found in the story, or anywhere in the margins- but that is an issue separate from characterization that might be best to discuss in another post.)

Metesky's death was meant to serve as the catalyst that send Roger into an examination of the bomber case not as an individual crime, but as part of a larger network of abuse and injustice- the psychotic outcry of distressed labor. He moves into the weirdo company town. Here's where the real motivation problems start. He kind of wanders around and is basically pushed around by other people. That's real bad. This, I think, is the main part of the problem with his character.

The final part is when he makes his character shift from someone who has legalistic and chivalrous notions of justice to someone who has been transformed through kinship with the oppressed. Forced to witness all of this stuff he'd shunted to the back of his mind all his life. That stuff comes out of the mine, and washes them all away- only Roger returns. He has passed through the gate of death, and some of it has seeped into him, unlocking everything he has accrued in Ogdenson. Roger is radicalized, but the realization makes him unable to access his power, the lawful world, any longer. That's what I mean by "coming to terms" with the bomber. He has found the very material of the world itself to have become irrevocably perverse- and at that point, what can you do?

A basic character map for Roger should look like this:

"I want to solve the bomber case to resolve my sense of justice. I cannot "solve" the bomber case because I am unable to understand it." --> Roger investigates the nexus of the greater "bomber crisis". --> Roger is able to understand the bomber, but has become so alienated by his findings that he can no longer comprehend the system he is embedded in, and cannot be a functionary of corrective law any more.

Anonymous Robot fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Sep 14, 2014

supermikhail
Nov 17, 2012


"It's video games, Scully."
Video games?"
"He enlists the help of strangers to make his perfect video game. When he gets bored of an idea, he murders them and moves on to the next, learning nothing in the process."
"Hmm... interesting."
I haven't read the whole story yet, and not all of the responses, to avoid spoilers. But on the topic of dialog, I thought George's lines were missing some escalation. I couldn't always tell from the dialog that he was being emotional, and only found out later through... I think they call it "attribution"? Anyway, where it says George was "a neurotic man" I wasn't reading him like that before at all. The same when it says "saccharine and contrite". Contrite - yes (I had to look the word up, though :downs:), saccharine - no? I was also not sure of the emotional progression of this line:

"George shook his head again. “That’s all well and good, mister, but can it wait? I’m not going back there. You come back without me. I won’t let you put me in county! You hear?”

Clearly he's raised his voice by the end, but how has he got there?

I'm not sure how this could be fixed, and even whether it has to be (I suspect my reading method might be playing havoc with this... or this could be an artifact of the written word). My first idea was to sprinkle some more exclamation marks around, but I hear they frown on that in the biz. :downs: Maybe expand the dialog a bit?

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