#277
A First Shot Fired
Part 10
BREAKING NEWS: Did the CIA target rescuers at sites of drone
attacks in Afghanistan? …
BREAKING NEWS: Nebraska candidate for governor blames rape
of three elderly women on too relaxed laws on Beyond Humans even though the men
caught who raped them have been proven to have no Beyond Human abilities…
BREAKING NEWS: Being unemployed sucks, being called for jury
duty when you had a chance at a job interview really sucks…
Some would say the very nature of trying to live in the
modern world is an adaption to chaos. It’s about being able to shape your steps
without the formula of what has directed the course of the past. Our questions
for surviving the future may have to do with how well we can finger paint
turmoil and not come out of it with it being an exercise for the insane.
The fear of this has more and more people reaching for some
sort of uniformity to make them feel comfortable about the way the course of
history is going. Human nature has always been one of safety within a comfort
zone. That’s why hunger, bigotry, and imperial nationalism still exists.
Uniformity just sounds like a bad word doesn’t it? Well, it
does to me. Just one of those words when spoken, heard, or read tweeks at the
things that tell you this isn’t right. Ok, it doesn’t affect you in that way
but it does really bother others in extremes. It has that effect on Chris
Friday also.
And that’s the way a lot of other humans see it. Just get
over yourself because that is the way a lot of humans see it. Seems that a lot
of the discourse in the world today is about whether adaption and a giving up
identity are worth security and protection.
The reasons behind a lot of human conflict and violence can
come down to some sort of fight against some form or another of uniformity,
even though most of the time these fights lead to an embracement of another
form of uniformity to try and accomplish goals.
Humans are just a strange.
To a lot of us any talk of uniform… it just irks. It’s nasty
and compels you to rebel against even using it in a sentence. This reaction is
just something that exists within some people and maybe at the core of what
drives humanities progress and has always been since the first chemical
reaction.
When you play around with the definition of
Uniformitarianism, “An assumption that the same natural laws and processes that
operate in the universe now have operated in the universe in the past and apply
everywhere in the universe.” You might come out of that definition knowing why
uniformity is such an attraction to so many and also why it’s such a repellant
to so many others.
Uniformitarianism was coined by William Whewell. You can
Wikipedia him, I did, then I forgot most of what I read about him. He is the
same theologian who came up with the term catastrophism as a set of ideas that
the Earth is shaped by a series of sudden violent acts.
When I think of that with Uniformity I think about a society
that preaches individuality but not at the price of a strong uniform system, no
matter if said system is broken or corrupt. Denying our basic way of being,
which is that violent causes a sort of violence that lives in uniformity, lives
in stagnation.
We wear uniformity comfortably because we deny the violent
nature that shapes our lives. It’s an imprisonment of hope. From giving in to
the slow turn to losing rights right out from under us to the lies of
depression.
The military functions on uniformity, a lot of jobs are done
well only by the way of uniformity. But it’s not just in the military and our
jobs where we confirm. You can see why uniformity is needed in those places,
hell the whole social contract is confirmed to a set way of living life.
We confirm in what knowledge we except out of stupidity, in
our beliefs out of fear, and in the things that entertain us… well, also out of
stupidity. Why else would reality TV be so popular.
In the modern world we have disguised uniformity in false
individuality as we strive to create a personal brand identity in hopes that
others will like it and dress themselves in our personal skins. For examples
see Twitter, Facebook, Cafépress, Blogger. One of the biggest goals a lot of
people have is celebrity, to be part of a pack of superstars.
So out of that culture mindset they are those who might just
be one of our few hopes left of true individuality. They are schisms in the box
that so many are agreeing to live within.
Banks, Darryl, and Faith are creatures of identity
destruction. Even though they don’t have any Beyond Human powers as such, they
are very comparable to legendary Chameleons, though Chameleons with
dissociative identity disorder.
They change almost everything they are on a daily basis.
This is how they have survived off the grid for so long. Around their few
friends the changes are mainly of cloths, like/dislikes, and stories of their
pasts.
If Chris or Sergeant Luke want a straight answer they have
to use a daily code word giving to each of them every morning, otherwise it’s a
task of interacting with a different person, a stranger, who you have a day to
get to know and get inside to see how they operate every day.
This at first drove Sergeant Luke crazy but slowly he has
been seeing the possibilities this might offer them in the future.
How they got to this way of living isn’t known. They aren’t
sharing and even if they did you probably couldn’t believe them. The two other
friends of theirs that Chris might both had two different stories. One that
they are all siblings wanted by the government, the other that they escaped a
government facility and are now on the run.
Neither of those are the truth but let’s play in a little
mystery from time to time for fun.
One of the few character traits they keep with each identity
is loyalty to their few friends.
I just thought about it but what do you think, wouldn’t
Identity Destruction make a great rock band name?
Whether either Banks, Darryl, and Faith actually suffer from
dissociative identity disorder is unknown but Chris doesn’t think so because
they talk about the switches of identity traits from time to time like it’s a
character they are portraying in a 24/7 play but a different role each day.
Sergeant Luke wished his undercover cops were even close to this
good adapting a new identity as these three were.
Since getting a straight answer from any of them, even when
using the given code word, about their pasts is near impossible he hasn’t even
thought much about if they are this way because of a severe trauma. His
personal theory is the world has just cracked them in a different way than it
cracked him or Chris.
No matter what one thing remains the same about each of them
and that is Banks is a doctor and sometimes a nurse, Darryl is an all-around
genius, and Faith is a hacker beyond measure.
Chris had meet each of them, several times each in fact,
before a mutual friend introduced them at an underground club for hackers and
those trying to stay away from Big Brother Reach and the like.
Big Brother Reach being the codename for the N.S.A.’s raw
information gathering operation that is also developing an A.I. component.
But I’m just telling you that as an FYI and because it’s
something I’d like to explore sometime in the future.
Today has been mainly a rest day for Chris after pretty much
day after day of training in one shape or form but it is also a day that he has
been eyeing for a while now.
Ever since they put together their base team Sergeant Luke
has been avoiding Banks, Darryl, and Faith as much as he can.
He has had to work with them a lot but honestly they creep
him out a lot.
So with a few days off from training Chris has used the time
to try, as much as he can, to get to know his team and lunch is always good for
conversation, even if you are having lunch with an unfamiliar person each time
you sit down.
‘It’s been a weekend since…,’ Chris
‘You and the sergeant went all fisticuffs.,’ Banks
‘Yea, and I’m still bruised all over,’ Chris
Chris and Banks were eating in the Popeys Pillar base
cafeteria. A baby blue painted large room with lots of tables and chairs and a
well-stocked kitchen. Once it offered meals to military men, now its meals go
towards five individuals on a mission of their own.
People talk about an army marching on its stomach and that’s
one of the reasons the cafeteria was one of the first sections of the base
Sergeant Luke wanted to get back up and running like new.
It took three days for Sergeant Luke to get everything
cleaned up and ready to work. Darryl helped a lot with that. Though having a
helpful technician one day and a pig headed one the next did slow down things a
bit. Good thing all were still geniuses either way.
They all cook from time to time but Darryl has become the
main cook adapting a different chef personality for each day’s menu when he
cooked. A genius in the kitchen can be a truly amazing thing no matter what
he’s cooking because cooking is chemistry after all.
The piss angry British stereotype chef personality is one
that they never like when one of those pops up. It always has everyone deciding
on cereal, hotdogs, and instant noodles on those days.
Today for lunch is southern fried chicken with smashed bacon
tators and beers.
‘You have nothing broken except for a slightly cracked rib,’
Banks said from her sports doctor personality of today.
‘Slightly cracked says the person who doesn’t have a cracked
rib,’ Chris
‘Just need to needle you up at game time is all,’ Banks
Darryl brings their food and sits down with them, ‘Eat up, a
lot of good lard in that chicken.’
Like any good southern chef he ate as he cooked and tested
the food.
Banks started in on her plate but Chris was just staring at
his. He wasn’t distracted with a fear kind of worry but a possible
embarrassment sort of worry. Very high school.
‘Today, isn’t it uniform day?’ Darryl
‘I’ve been dreading this,’ Chris as he played with his
smashed tators.
The intercom system whistled on, ‘Chris, I need you in the
Staging Area.’
Chris chugged his beer in one go and then stood, ‘I’m
surprised Faith isn’t around for this?’
‘No matter the personality, hackers are never very social,’
Banks said showing one of the signs that cropped up that they totally
understand what they’re doing.
Chris exited the cafeteria heading for the Staging Area. He
should have eaten earlier, that fried chicken looked good and it’s never as
good the next day.
The Staging Area is the place you go before heading out on a
mission. A place to check your equipment and get any last minute instructions.
Also called a Go Area or a Time To Puke Area as a lot of people do that right
before a mission.
Chris couldn’t help but see the symbolism in the place where
Sergeant Luke would be showing him his combat uniform. After all symbolism is
the whole point of him wearing a uniform in the first place.
On the walk there Chris thought about how all of this
started. About the lessons, the bruises, and the long overnight talks about
what they were going. What could happen, what was probably going to happen,
good and bad.
Today is the beginning of tomorrow and tomorrow being chaos,
tomorrow is the fight against the uniformity of good enough.
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we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people
just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing,
a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a
division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much
so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian
C. Williams, System*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and
all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes
needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just
in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor
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Written by Brian C. Williams
Edited by Brian C. Williams
