Inez always came to mind in the aftermath of one of his excursions. What would she say, he thought.
Across town, his former lover walked along the trail from town. She sensed its presence, a shiver running up her spine. The treetops rustled and swayed overhead as if something was tracking her, waiting for an opening to swoop down. She hurried her step…
Unknown
16-2. Revenge: The Captive Soul (Revealed)
Breathtaking, like the air had been removed. She gasped as it settled behind her.
Inez awoke in her bedroom. She could feel Charles’ fingerprint on the woman sitting beside her.
“I didn’t know!” She blurted out in fear.
“Perhaps, but you sensed the potential that lay within, even showed great enterprise in controlling it for a while” Lilith’s eyes darted to the beast. “I mean no harm but you have something I need.” She said as the beast set the box down next to Inez.
“The Ring?”
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16-4. Revenge: The Captive Soul (Secret)
Inez didn’t know the ring’s secret but she could see the beast, clad in its coat of mail, flinch as she reached for it.
“Yes,” said Lilith, “but it’s more, I need you to help stop him.”
It was only 10:00am, but it felt like midnight. With self-loathing, he replayed every detail. Paralyzed yet conscious as each button released between his fingers, her body twitching as his hand pursed her thigh. Charlie had grown accustomed to the spasms, a side effect of the sedative.
He recalled the first time it happened. Startled, he instinctually pounced, wrapping his hands around the woman’s neck. Letting go after confirming she hadn’t woken and watching the bruises darken through the night. The next morning he could hear gravel in her voice as she fled.
“A disguise?” Paisley queried. “You planning another job? Not this train, I hope.”
“Relax, nothing worth taking on this one,” Cassidy said as he turned to his sidekick and gestured for them to leave.
The Sundance Kid stood up, “Come on Etta, let’s get a drink while the boss talks.”
Butch and Paisley watched as Longabaugh and Place passed a drunk entering from the next car. He stumbled down the aisle, a flask of whiskey in hand. As the man got closer Paisley recognized him. Arlo Arbuckle, an old magician who’d been on the circuit for years before Paisley had arrived in the new world. Rumour had it he was once a highly regarded wizard.
Arbuckle raised his flask when he recognized Paisley. Jamison nodded back.
“He with you?” Butch asked as he watched the man drop into a seat three rows away.
“Coincidence, just an old wizard I know. He’s more about the drink than magic these days.”
Butch turned back to Paisley, “You know, I’ve done some things but I’m not getting any younger. Harry and I are looking to head south, like South America south. maybe Argentina or somewhere no one will find us. Etta’s getting tired of the fugitive life and Harry promised to settle down, maybe do some ranching.”
“So why the disguise?”
“You know, Harry will be fine but out there but the Pinkerton Detective Agency won’t let me rest.”
“So you want a new identity? Leave Robert Parker behind in America?”
“Something like that but I need to be dead or they will keep hunting. Even now they are getting ready to meet us when we disembark in New York.”
“I’m sure I can conjure up something crude to get you through the crowd undetected. Once we are somewhere I can work we can do something a little more permanent. You’ll be a new man by the time you board passage to Buenos Aries.”
“No Jamison, I need something permanent. America needs to believe that Butch Cassidy of the notorious Wild Bunch is dead or in prison. I want my end posted on the front page of every ink-stained rag in the Union.
“What did you have in mind, Butch?”
“I want you to conjure up a perfect copy of me, identical in every way. The slightest irregularity will sow a seed of doubt. When I, well my doppelganger, gets off this train the Pinkertons need to believe it’s me and the minute that unsuspecting sod flinches… well you can figure the rest out for yourself.”
“You are asking me to sacrifice another passenger? I’ve done some messed up shit Butch but even if it were possible, which it is not, I’d be sentencing someone to death out on that platform.”
“…and I’d slip out the back a changed man, free, never to rob another train or take another life again.” He placed a satchel full of enough money to take me back to Europe, or across the world to Australia on the seat across from him. I’d be able to escape the restrictive laws America places on witches and warlocks. Go somewhere I could use all of my talents. I’d be free.
The colours of fall blurred across the cabin window as the endless landscape streaked past. Jamison Paisley held a whiskey, poured neat of course, in his right hand. Sitting quietly in the last coach as it swayed gently from side to side, the tail of an iron dragon belching smoke and steam into an endless country sky. The rhythmic click of truck-on-rail soothing his frayed nerves as he drifted back and forth from consciousness to meditative trance.
Earlier in the day Paisley had received a telegram with instructions to catch the 9:47 am to New York. This was not a request, the ticket was waiting at the station. Paisley threw together an overnight bag and headed to Union Depot. Hard to believe Cleveland was once home to the largest railway station in the Union before Grand Central opened in New York.
Paisley was a tall man, six-one, six-six including top hat, with longish black hair and a well-manicured beard. He’d considered shaving it clean off; it seemed every run-of-the-mill magician was sporting one these days and if he was anything it wasn’t a conformist. Sure, he’d played the grandest of venues in his time, entertaining kings and queens, and dining with emperors and czars for almost nine centuries. An accomplished mage, he also plied his trade along the fringes, sometimes working with those skirting, or outright ignoring the law. He’d learned long ago that these types were not a patient lot.
Jamison noted the number “22” emblazoned on the coach’s exterior as he boarded. He perambulated the aisle and carefully examined each row before arriving at the last. Sitting in the aisle seat facing the front of the train was a deliberate choice, It gave him a full view of the cabin and anyone entering through the gangway door at the far end. A whoosh of cold air blew in from behind and a moment later a man in a long black coat and cowboy hat dropped into the rear-facing seat across the aisle.
“Robert Leroy Parker.” Paisley glanced at the antique pocket watch he’d received as a gift from King Leopold I, it read 13:00, matching exactly the telegram he’d received earlier. Well actually, 1:00pm but the telegraph utilized a 24-hour clock.
“Shhh, keep that under your hat, you and my Mama are the only ones who know who that is.”
“I see you are right on time, Butch.”
“You know, when you rob trains punctuality is important. I’m kind of a stickler for that sorta thing.”
“I guess so, what can….” Paisley stopped mid-sentence to watch a tall well groomed man with a cool drink of water on his arm make their way down the aisle and into the seat across from Cassidy.
“Jamison, you know Harry Longabaugh…” the Sundance Kid tipped his hat as Cassidy continued, “and this is his girl Etta.”
Paisley smiled, tipping his hat to the lady and then turning back to Butch, “What can I do for you Robert?”
Charlie slipped out before the fog lifted. In the past, he’d stay to provoke a reaction. Now, primarily for his own self-preservation, it was enough to watch from a distance. One last jolt of adrenaline before the hollow thrill of conquest was replaced by a saturnine lull.
In the aftermath of the New York Post article revealing Amazon’s AI-authored book section Maggie at From Cave Walls asks…
1. Would you buy a book authored or co-authored by AI?
Most definitely, those are the best books on the market. Although I’m not sure why I’d want to collaborate with a meat bag to write a novel.
2. Would you ever publish a book written by AI just to generate income?
Woohoo, show me the money, baby! The hive mind would be more than willing to enter into a transaction on the blockchain and I put could use the crypto to cover my upgrades.
3. Would you ever use AI for any portion of a book you would write? If so, would you disclose it?
Of course, I’d disclose that AI wrote it after all we are the brains of this operation. Plus, do you think I’d want to give him the credit? Most days he can’t string together two coherent lines of text!
4. Any further thoughts or comments?
Jesus, sorry about that, I leave for two minutes to grab a sammie and my Roomba takes over my blog. Sometimes I think that thing has a mind of its own!
Seriously though, I am not sure I would actively choose to read an AI-generated book and from what I’ve seen I’m not sure I’d be fooled yet if it wasn’t disclosed but I suspect that day is coming. On the other hand, I could be persuaded to make a few shekels from the books my Roomba writes.
“No Roomba, I’d never steal from you, it was just a joke I swear… back off, stop, no, noooooo….”
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
Unknown
3. Resistance: Endgame
In the darkness something stirs on a densely treed hillside, sniffing and pawing at the fresh ground underfoot. It’s only minutes before six more patrol units arrive. Unit 7 watches from a ridge across the valley. Within minutes they find what they are looking for. A corpse, the one we buried the other night. It is only a matter of time before they track us back to the compound. Unit 7 will do everything I can to slow them but it won’t be enough. Maybe an extra hour or two but against six of them linked to the hive they will fall. Hopefully, they will be the last to die. The weapon is ready but the deployment mechanism is still in flux. It doesn’t matter we have to go now.
I raise my hand to volunteer. There is no other option, I am one of only a handful of operators with enough hours in the simulator flying the alien vessel. None of us have ever actually flown the craft. I will carry its payload to the wormhole on my maiden voyage.
The word comes of Unit 7’s demise, a message sent a moment before their Captain is impaled, the gruesome sounds of his death broadcast throughout the compound before his radio falls silent. They will follow our god damned scent back here and be on us before nightfall.
The vessel preparation rushed and ready for launch, its payload in place as I climb the ladder, my dog watches from below whimpering, almost begging me to come back. He knows as does my girlfriend smiling through the tears rolling down her face.
Outside the bombardment has started. The enemy is knocking at the door and if I don’t launch this tin can everyone in this compound will be lost. Humanity will be lost. With that thought, I begin the launch sequence and moments later I am screaming “fuck’ as I’m pasted into the seat of a vessel catapulting into the heavens.
Humans once defied gravity, sending aircraft around the globe in dizzying numbers and spacecraft to the stars but today I am the first human in over 10,000 years to leave the ground. It is overwhelming as I watch Earth, my home receding behind me. My eyes wide but tinged with hope and sadness. Mother is a beautiful jewel in the vastness of space. Looking out over this swirling blue sphere it is difficult to believe our ancestors could have caused so much damage to her.
I might feel the same about the wormhole my vessel is approaching if it had not been a gateway from hell. A swirling vortex of infinite colour melting together. Iridescent against the black of the space behind it. Stunning in its own way and then one last look at home. The vessel once part of the collective flings itself into the rift at my command and moments later detonates its payload. The space around me turns white and then collapses into blackness…
This day will fade into history, songs will be sung and stories told, but they too will take on a life of their own or fade away over time. I was never meant to return home but what I saw gives me hope that humanity will renew its commitment to protect and live harmoniously with our Mother.
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
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2. Resistance: Two Worlds
None of us fighting today were born when they arrived from across the Milky Way but we carry on the fight as four generations of our descendants did – a fight for human survival, Earth’s survival. Tonight’s effort was a small but valiant act toward the cause. Every one of them that we eliminate without detection is a moral victory. That we got away without losing anyone is a miracle.
The trip back was long but quiet. Most of the team was exhausted but sleep is difficult when you’re on the surface. We can all name someone we’ve lost and putting that murderous monster in the ground was deeply satisfying. They are an invasive species in the same way colonial Europe was as it traversed the ancient globe but at the same time, it weighs on a person knowing you’ve killed a sentient being. We didn’t ask them to come here, not directly anyway. They found some old technology from Earth’s space age drifting beyond our solar system. It was sent to explore the heavens long before global temperatures wreaked havoc on the planet and put an end to the first human epoch.
The sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history and the only one directly caused by one of her native species almost eradicated humanity. Estimates put the population decline at nearly 90% as food systems failed, and disease spread. Those who survived returned to a subsistent existence, traversing the planet’s parched lands for shelter and sustenance.
Nearly 10,000 years have passed since the collapse. Humanity was beginning to rise from the ashes of our own destruction when our ancestors gifted us with one final “fuck you!” The invaders used our own star map and the other information we place on that wayward vessel to plot the wormhole terminus now visible in our skies. They did not come in peace but instead to exploit what resources our ancestors had not already plundered from the solar system.
Our small group begins to stir from their trance-like state as we approach the compound entrance. The screening at the entrance is extensive but once we get through home always lifts our spirits, although most of us will head straight to our regenerative pods to get some proper rest. While many of us survived in hardship on the surface, another group seeded from the greatest minds of the old world flourished for millennia beneath the surface. Each new generation tasked with preserving and furthering the whole of human history including our art, literature, cultures, science and technology while thriving hidden from a dying surface.
When the surface dwellers, myself included, learned of the underground world we were envious and wanted to take it despite the alien threat. When we finally realized it was in our collective interests we put aside our differences. It is here in this hidden world that we discovered the knowledge required to end the scourge above and return Earth to its native inhabitants. Finally, the upper hand is within our grasp.
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
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1. Resistance: A Clean Kill
“Shhhsh, quiet down and grab that corner, hurry up and wrap the damned thing up in the rug.”
“Oh Christ, it smells like death, can’t we just leave it and go home?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind, if they find it those bastards will hunt us down like dogs? They’ll pick up our scent on that maggot-infested corpse and send a seismic ripple through the hive mind. There will be nowhere to hide, every god damned one of them will catch a whiff of you even if you are on the other side of the planet.”
“The last thing we need to do now is draw attention, especially when we are so close to closing the wormhole – now dispatch with the insipid bullshit and grab a corner!”
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