As a gift for your Kuumba minded-celebrations today, friend of the site novelist Gary Phillips dropped some holiday-themed fiction on your minds. Here's an excerpt …
The Blonde Ghost drifted into Dr. Grayface's lab, phasing through an alloy wall. Her icy stare swept the interior. She saw Grayface, whose real name was Hans von Hanz, directing one of his assistants, both of them wearing welder's goggles. They were at a worktable upon which was a partially dismantled laser cannon. The assistant was welding a component in place, the flame thin, blue and precise jetting from the nozzle of his acetylene torch.
The Ghost solidified her diaphanous form, her ability such that even garb including the cape draped about her milky whiteness became spectral-like as well. Some sort of limited engagement field Grayface had concluded after several tests conducted on her at one point. She could extend the field to a degree and make say a book or dog intangible as well.
Once she did this to a tree hugger, freaking out the environmentalist's allies for several minutes that their friend's head had suddenly disappeared. The Blonde Ghost's boot-clad feet came down softly on the metal floor. The lab was part of the floating fortress of the Medusa Council, a not-so-secret cabal of right-wing corporate and business interests.
The craft was large enough to house some 200 personnel comfortably and designed to look like a flying saucer, though more disk shaped than bubbled in the middle tapering to thin edges like a traditional UFO—at least one as imagined in 1950s films. There were four tank turrets equidistant around the top diameter of the airship. The craft was called the Sky Cutter. The cannon being repaired was usually mounted in one of those turrets.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeTwo days ago the Sky Cutter had swooped in over a massive rally in Cleveland protesting foreclosures. The protest had been given a boost due to a former governor and vice-presidential candidate who'd testified before Congress recently about how sorry she was the investment firm she was in charge of, Framken Ulbright Financials, somehow lost more than a billion dollars in assets.
The buzzing by the Sky Cutter had been an attempt by the Medusa Council's chairman, sometimes called Potato Head or more often Spud One, to put a scare into the gathered, more than 10,000 strong. Rather, salted among the protestors, in their grey and black, bandanas worn stage coach robber style, were hardcore members of the 99 Brigade. They'd opened fire on the airship with a newly developed pulse wave device that blew the laser cannon apart. There was a cadre of techies among the 99ers where were about making the gadgets inspired by their beloved Star Trek reality. The Cutter flew away.
"Madam," Dr. Grayface said, putting his goggles around his neck. He nodded at the Blond Ghost who strode past him. He smiled thinly as she didn't acknowledge his greeting. He knew despite her practiced glacial countenance, her pulse was quickening given she'd spotted Perry Decaine in another part of the lab.
For more, click through to FourStory (link below), a charitably-minded place for you to get some fiction. The art piece above is by Paul Gulacy.
[Source: FourStory]