Until the night of his kidnapping Scott Richards was happy with his life as a grifter. He didn't want to be a hero, he didn't want to be taken to a world in the Snickers galaxy but he didn't have a choice. His mission was to save the population of a polluted planet, controlled by computers devoted to running a virtual game designed to entertain a species of unimaginative beings trapped in stasis. He knew he wasn't a hero, but he knew how to make a buck.
HOME WORLD
IT ISN'T HELL BUT YOU CAN SMELL IT FROM THEREBy Michael AscotbyAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Michael Ascot
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-2492-9 Contents
Nuts................................................................................1City................................................................................4Adjustment..........................................................................12Fiends..............................................................................19Snickers............................................................................23Ingrates............................................................................27Faith...............................................................................35Repartee............................................................................41Confusing...........................................................................48Destroyed...........................................................................55Reconsider..........................................................................62Intolerable.........................................................................69Facilities..........................................................................76Gold................................................................................83Gardens.............................................................................88Union...............................................................................95Sleep...............................................................................102Morning.............................................................................106Coin................................................................................113Dragon..............................................................................119Mad.................................................................................126Talk................................................................................132Ooze................................................................................140Screech.............................................................................147Harpy...............................................................................152Deal................................................................................157Grubs...............................................................................163Downpour............................................................................171Banana..............................................................................176Them................................................................................181Haydn...............................................................................186Dinner..............................................................................191Run.................................................................................199Angels..............................................................................206Pinch...............................................................................212Badge...............................................................................220Destiny.............................................................................231Kraken..............................................................................239File: Addendum "A"; Subject: Scott Richards; Operative Unit: 2B.....................247File: Addendum "B"; Subject: Scott Richards; Operative Unit: 2B.....................252File: Addendum "C"; Subject: Scott Richards: Operative Unit: 2B.....................258Machines............................................................................264Beelzebub...........................................................................270Jackass.............................................................................278Recruit.............................................................................283Smell...............................................................................290Skymir..............................................................................296Soil................................................................................304Flypaper............................................................................310Indigestion.........................................................................318Challenge...........................................................................323Them Again..........................................................................329Swing Batter, Batter Swing..........................................................336And the Crowd Went Crazy............................................................342Gort................................................................................347Cigarettes..........................................................................356
Chapter One
Nuts
The wife must have thought I was nuts when I came back to the trailer at five in the morning, stone-cold sobber. Without a word, I immediately pulled out the portable typewriter and got to work.
I had to get it all down on paper before the chain of events got distorted into a mental Picasso painting. Oh sure, it may look like a painting of a beautiful woman now but what the hell is it going to look like after you sober up?
Sure, the wife saw my reward, and the pages of typed computer paper. She was too busy demanding an explanation of my whereabouts to, as she cleverly stated, give a damn about that crap. I told her that what I was typing would explain everything, and if she'd just let me get down to work she'd have her answer in a few weeks. That went over like a lead fart.
She spent the next hour and a half questioning the possibility as to wether my parents actually knew each other or were just strangers on the block. She also stated in the loudest possible voice she could issue, without blowing a vocal chord, that I was following in the steps of Oedipus Rex. Of course, I'm paraphrasing in both instances. There are some words I won't even use. Well, I do actually, but only under stress.
The one-sided argument ended as they all do. She stated in a superior tone that she had to go to work. Like she was the only woman who had a paying job. The force of her famous door slam popped the plastic wall hanging off its bracket. Peace, at last. Now I can get down to work.
The whole thing started last night, or should I say six months ago? It all depends on your point of view, or should I say my point of view? Oh, this is nuts. I feel like a pathetic yokel in some deserted field who saw a UFO. The poor schmuck tells his tale to anyone who will listen, and everyone smiles at him, shaking their heads knowingly. No one actually believes his account of what has happened, but they are too polite to tell him he's meshuggeh.
I really think aliens do stuff like that because it pleases their equally alien sense of humor. Believe me. I know what I'm talking about. I mean, you may think your dog running and sliding on the highly-polished kitchen floor is hilarious, but that's not even in the same solar system as some of the guys I've met.
Case in point. I tell them that I'm going to write a book about the whole affair and become very prosperous from the royalties and merchandising, action figures, restaurant tie-ins, that sort of thing.
Do they give me some cool alien thing that will prove, once and for all, that I'm on the level? NO! They give me some printout that could have been pumped out from a kid's PC, and I'm supposed to be happy all over because I've got the documentation necessary to fill in the gaps of what happened to the princess, dwarf, and magician when I wasn't around. Hell, the paper isn't even made from some indestructible material. It's just paper.
Who knew they would do that to me, the lord of their only sentient space ship and champion of their world. Did they think they were doing me a favor? Or were they having a little laugh on old Scott Richards?
I can't start thinking like that. They were too sincere to be goofing on me.
Yeah, I know I just used the words "lord" and "champion," but it was their idea, not mine.
I've never been the hero type. Hell, I remember when I went in for my draft physical back in `71. My number was so low that it was a sure thing that I would end up in hiding behind bamboo. This was not an experience I wanted to participate in. So the night before the testing I stayed up playing my Alice's Restaurant LP, drinking heavy, smoking cigarettes, and getting high so I'd look and feel my best in the morning -just like Arlo had done in the record.
When I got to the testing facility, I was given a test to take. I thought about blowing it, but the DI said that if I failed it they would just give me an easier one to take. My actions would determine what I would do for the next four years. I tried very hard to do well on the thing since I had no longing desire for heavy lifting.
After that I was brought into a room and told to strip down to my boxer shorts. The rest of the group, each thinner than myself, chuckled, pointed, and traded snide remarks about my full, manly figure. I might have become upset, but I was hurried off for my physical testing.
My testing went pretty much the way Arlo described his, though there were some differences.
In a room marked "MEDICAL HISTORY" I was asked if I was an addict. I wanted to know what prerequisites one would need to have to fill the title. It was marginal, but I did not make the cut.
When it was all over, I was told that two hundred and sixty pounds was too much for my six-foot two inch frame and that they were going to give me a year to loose thirty pounds.
I thanked them for their concern and said bye-bye to my no-longer-laughing compatriots as I left them to fill out their induction forms.
On the bus trip home, before I passed out from exhaustion, I formulated a sure-fire diet designed to achieve my desired goal. To this day I still have a soft spot in my heart for the milkshake and doughnut diet that helped me gain another twenty-five pounds "just to be on the safe side of civilian."
Don't get me wrong. I had no political motivation in trying to avoid military service. The guys who fought there are all true heros. Can you imagine someone my size slogging through the rice patties of sunny Vietnam? A walking shooting gallery for our new-found friends in black pajamas? I don't think so.
The beginning is probably the best place to start. But what is the actual beginning?. Was it when I stumbled into their plan? Or was it when they started examining me for the job?
Oh, I didn't know I was being scanned, but they told me I was, so it must be true. After all, they never lied to me - though they do have an odd way of looking at the truth.
Okay. Okay. I just have to take a deep breath and begin. GOD, I wish I had a smoke. But they taste so vile now. I'll have to settle for a large scotch, rocks - for "mental lubrication."
This would be the part where some artsy-fartsy director would consider a wobbly flashback fade into the next scene. Someone would tell him it was a stroke of genius, and get paid to do it.
Chapter Two
City "Damn, it's cold." I chattered to myself, as I stopped during my midnight stumble through the woods in back of the trailer park where the wife and I live.
I light another smoke and listened for the sounds of danger. Off in the distance I could hear the hiss of a semi as it sped across the still-damp highway.
You might think it odd that I would be out on such a chilly night, but the time and the weather suited my mood.
The wife was having a real problem with me breathing her air that evening. So, realizing discretion was the better part of marriage, I had quietly escaped out to the more hospitable climate of the cold April darkness. To the wife this all happened last night. That's probably why she's so pissed at me this morning. To me it was over six months ago. The mobile unit explains it all later, so I won't bother now.
I'm basically a city boy, but I've been relocated out to the sticks. I don't hate nature so much as I loath all the nasty stuff in it. Not the lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my, no. It's the little stuff that I can't handle. You know what I mean, the itchy things like bees, mosquitos, and poison ivy. That kind of hurt sneaks up on you before you can do anything about it. At least at night I couldn't see it, and it was too cold for most of the creepy crawlies to be out.
The thing I do like about nature is that it's just like real life in the sense that it doesn't care who or what you are. Everything gets the same breaks – which are none at all.
Life isn't fair or unfair, it's totally apathetic to the concept of fairness and all the disappointments that go with it. What is important in life is what you do for yourself. People delude themselves into thinking that money, family, or a title makes them special. In the end, we all close in the same boat – or should I say "casket"? Nature is blind to man's achievements. Maybe that's why mankind is relentlessly trying to destroy nature.
When he has finished his job, mankind will then shake its collective fist in the air as the wilderness quivers in the last of its death throes. The human race can finally say to themselves, since there won't be anyone left to talk to, that'll teach nature to ignore us.
Whoa, where did that come from? I guess with all that's happened I've been doing a lot of thinking. Don't forget, I've seen what rampant pollution can do to a world. No, you can't know since, I haven't told you yet. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. But, then again, I've all ready mentioned princesses, dwarfs, and magicians. So what's one more odd reference?
Where was I? Oh, yeah, wandering around the countryside.
The wife has partially convinced me that the country is a better place to raise a family. It doesn't matter that we don't have any kids yet. "At least we will be established in the community," she reminds me incessantly. I still haven't convinced myself of that particular invention, but at least I'm numbing to the concept. I think my attitude might have had something to do with our fight that night. But at that moment I didn't care.
I pulled the pint of cheap scotch out of my back pocket and took a healthy belt.
"Why don't you get a better job?" She says.
"Why do we have to live in a trailer?" She says.
"Why can't we live like my parents?" She says.
"Why don't you do more around the house?" She says.
"Why did she have to keep at me all the time?" I say.
How was a man supposed to get anything useful done, like picking the trifecta at the track. I can't figure out how's a guy supposed to concentrate if she's always hounding him about things she considered useful. I mean the woman has no sense of priorities.
I explained to her that if God wanted man to do yard work, he would never had allowed the invention of high rises. Which, by an odd turn of circumstances, I would be totally happy to be living in, and not a used trailer in a park where deer and the occasional cow stroll through every so often. The focus of my logic was lost on her.
The wife's nasal whine still hisses in my mind. I'd had thought six months away from her might make me feel differently towards her. In a way, it did. It seems absence makes the heart go wander.
That night's argument evolved into the inevitable big one. "Why don't we have children?" she screeched.
"Why? Because we're too busy bitching at each other to start a family." I snapped back.
"You hate children." She accused.
"That's not true. I love them – with onion, garlic and lemon juice." I retorted, half in jest. But she didn't see the humor in it.
I sure as hell didn't want to bring a kid into a home like the one I was brought up in. But I wasn't foolish enough to say that out loud.
If you're wondering what was so wrong with my childhood, please remember that this is not some talk show full of pathetic ne'er-do-wells who think sleeping with their wife's mother is a form of family closeness.
I don't want to give you my side of the story. It's history, and I really don't feel the need to explain my childhood to you. Besides, if you feel the need to get that deep into my past, you can go down to the courthouse and read the transcript of the trial.
Yes, it's true I had some trouble with the authorities in the past. I happen to view the law as more of a reference point. The authorities have their frame of reference and I have mine. Perception is the only difference. Well that and the guns, which I never carry yet they unfairly do.
The woods emptied out into a large meadow that might have been a field once but now lay fallow.
I'd been out for about an hour and I had no intention of going back home that night. In my possession were three packs of cigarettes, and an almost full pint of booze stashed in the pockets of my black wind breaker.
For entertainment I had my Walkman® and four and a half hours of the best music I could tape. John Lee Hooker sang to me about the "Big Town Blues" as the thought came to me that I was going to blow this joint.
In the morning I would grab the train for "The City" and start all over again. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll crash at some friend's place until I get on my feet.
That thought presented a few problems. The first was the most obvious. My car keys were back at the house and the car was in her name. No problem. I'd just go cross country and I'd be at the bus depot by six or seven in the morning, then it was off to Rochester and the train station.
By this time tomorrow I'd be at some friend's place in "The City." For those of you who are from out of town, New York is the only city. There are, indeed, many cities but only one "City." You'd have to live there to know what I mean.
That brought up the next problem. I stopped dead in my tracks. Who did I know in "The City" that I didn't owe money to or, more to the point, who wasn't pissed at me for some reason or other? There are millions of people who lived there. I couldn't have pissed all of them off. I had to think that one out.
There was a rustle in the tall grass near me. I didn't stick around to see what it was. Sticking around to see what something is could get you killed where I come from.
The full moon forced its way around a cloud to light up the landscape.
I stopped running in a stand of pines that circled a rather large boulder. It had a chair look to it, three sides circling a fairly smooth flat base. I bent over and gulped air. I must have run a hundred feet. After a moment I could stand up straight again.
"Thing's probably wet," I grumbled as I approached. Yet, to my surprise, it was dry to the touch.
"Nice. This must be a good omen." I said, and plopped myself on it. My next surprise was that the thing was more comfortable than I had expected. Almost like a polished throne.
"Who would carve a stone in the shape of a throne out here in the woods?" I asked myself in a whisper.
The answer struck me like a sledge hammer. "Satanists," I gulped as I hopped down to give my surroundings a better look see.
The moon remained full and bright. Clouds, thick bands of grayish black, floated leisurely across its path. In short, it was a perfect night for a sacrifice.
My skin crawled. I scratched my beard to relieve a bite from a nosee-um. I looked at my watch. I saw, by the light of my lighter, it was half past midnight. A little late for your usual blood ceremony.
Slowly I looked around the rock. Everything looked normal. No black candles, big shiny knives, or left over body parts. Maybe this was a coven of clean devil worshipers? Or maybe I had a little too much to drink.
I sat back on the boulder and lit another smoke with the butt of the old one. The damned rock actually felt like a throne, and I started to get into the fantasy. I took another pull from the pint and spoke with a regal tone.
"Hear ye! Hear ye! Scott Richards now presides over his court. Let all those who take exception with the throne state their grievances."
I half expected my wife to come from in back of a pine and start bitching at me. I held my breath in mute anticipation. A sigh of relief escaped from my lips and I settled back in my throne for some serious thought.
In my younger days I used to think about the world and all its problems, but, as I grew older I realized that no one can set things right - not the UN, or NATO, or any other power. So how could one person ever expect to maintain more than his own life? I didn't seem to be able to do even that all that well, so I had better get focused on more important things.
Jeff and Pam? No. I owed them fifty bucks. And I was carrying barely enough to get back to "The City."
Yvonne? No. She thinks I'm only out to have sex with anyone who'll let me. True, I was like that once, but now I'm a responsible, mature adult who's terrified of getting AIDS. (Talk about your good reasons for monogamy.)
I thought it odd that the boulder wasn't chilling my back side. In fact, the thing seemed to be getting a tad warmer. Dumb thought. Rocks only heat up in the sun, and there certainly wasn't sun out at midnight. It must be heat stored from the day's sun.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from HOME WORLDby Michael Ascotby Copyright © 2010 by Michael Ascot. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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