Itty Bitty Bigger World: Interview 2
Jun. 6th, 2015 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyItty Bitty Bigger World: Interview 2
Of course, our intrepid reporter with 2242 News - formerly a diver with CalFire, who had pissed away several years of hard work to out himself for momentary fame - wanted to talk to me as soon as I sat down at a table in the fireboat’s mess.
“Steven,” I said, putting us on a first name basis, “why did you say that I’m the Mastermind?”
I wanted to nail the slander statement down tight. Not only did I want to own a news station, but I wanted this little shit bankrupted, broke and begging for spare credits in between trips to the public food dispensers.
Nothing personal.
Having had some training in putting an interviewee at his ease, which he apparently had no intention of actually using, Steven promptly replied, “You have been the subject of repeated and intense attacks for several hours - yet you are still alive. The only plausible explanation is that you are attacking yourself, a publicity stunt if you will. So to go back to my first question, Alan, why did you fire missiles at Stanford Hospital?”
“UC Stanford,” I corrected, as if absently. I’d had a run-in with their patents team a couple decades back, and it still stung. “I had nothing to do with the outrageously illegal attack on UC Stanford Hospital and Clinic, which cost numerous lives. Why do you think I did?”
“Same logic,” Steven continued, continuing to dig his grave - in a strictly metaphorical, legal sense. “Within half a minute of a _space based_ attack on a fixed site, you managed to escape alive - and with two high Stanford officers. How could you do that - unless you already knew the attack was inbound?”
I didn’t correct him this time. Perhaps I could get UC Stanford’s legal team in on this too.
“Partly serendipity. Mostly foresight. You will note that I arranged to bring two modern battlesuits with me. If I’d been a little smarter, I’d have been wearing one.”
“Yes, and a mere hour later you were seen in downtown San Francisco doing exactly that. How does one get ahold of Cairo-restricted _military ordinance_ on short notice?”
“Friends,” I smiled. “What made you decide to suddenly give up a career as a firefighter, Steven? A loved one with brain cancer?”
It was his turn to pale and look as white as his ancestry would permit. “What are you talking about?”
“A media career is a flash in the pan - there’s a reason we call it ‘Twenty Minutes of Fame.’ You worked _hard_ to join CalFire, and harder to become fireboat crew. So someone got you to give that all up, just to broadcast a signal to a live media network. Years of hard work for ten seconds of missile beacon. So who did the Mastermind - the real Mastermind - murder to roll you? Or did he tell you the cancer was curable?”
The rapt audience - composed of Steve’s former co-workers - waited for his reply.
Instead, blood trickled from his nose and ears and he fell down dead on the table in front of me.
As a rejoinder, it lacked a certain bit of style.
I sighed as the table’s blast curtain surrounded us and alarms hooted. “Biowar contaminant!” I then reached for the nearest convenient respirator, purged and fitted, and breathed from allegedly purified air as the cubicle created by the blast curtain filled with nanoscrubber foam.
Of course, our intrepid reporter with 2242 News - formerly a diver with CalFire, who had pissed away several years of hard work to out himself for momentary fame - wanted to talk to me as soon as I sat down at a table in the fireboat’s mess.
“Steven,” I said, putting us on a first name basis, “why did you say that I’m the Mastermind?”
I wanted to nail the slander statement down tight. Not only did I want to own a news station, but I wanted this little shit bankrupted, broke and begging for spare credits in between trips to the public food dispensers.
Nothing personal.
Having had some training in putting an interviewee at his ease, which he apparently had no intention of actually using, Steven promptly replied, “You have been the subject of repeated and intense attacks for several hours - yet you are still alive. The only plausible explanation is that you are attacking yourself, a publicity stunt if you will. So to go back to my first question, Alan, why did you fire missiles at Stanford Hospital?”
“UC Stanford,” I corrected, as if absently. I’d had a run-in with their patents team a couple decades back, and it still stung. “I had nothing to do with the outrageously illegal attack on UC Stanford Hospital and Clinic, which cost numerous lives. Why do you think I did?”
“Same logic,” Steven continued, continuing to dig his grave - in a strictly metaphorical, legal sense. “Within half a minute of a _space based_ attack on a fixed site, you managed to escape alive - and with two high Stanford officers. How could you do that - unless you already knew the attack was inbound?”
I didn’t correct him this time. Perhaps I could get UC Stanford’s legal team in on this too.
“Partly serendipity. Mostly foresight. You will note that I arranged to bring two modern battlesuits with me. If I’d been a little smarter, I’d have been wearing one.”
“Yes, and a mere hour later you were seen in downtown San Francisco doing exactly that. How does one get ahold of Cairo-restricted _military ordinance_ on short notice?”
“Friends,” I smiled. “What made you decide to suddenly give up a career as a firefighter, Steven? A loved one with brain cancer?”
It was his turn to pale and look as white as his ancestry would permit. “What are you talking about?”
“A media career is a flash in the pan - there’s a reason we call it ‘Twenty Minutes of Fame.’ You worked _hard_ to join CalFire, and harder to become fireboat crew. So someone got you to give that all up, just to broadcast a signal to a live media network. Years of hard work for ten seconds of missile beacon. So who did the Mastermind - the real Mastermind - murder to roll you? Or did he tell you the cancer was curable?”
The rapt audience - composed of Steve’s former co-workers - waited for his reply.
Instead, blood trickled from his nose and ears and he fell down dead on the table in front of me.
As a rejoinder, it lacked a certain bit of style.
I sighed as the table’s blast curtain surrounded us and alarms hooted. “Biowar contaminant!” I then reached for the nearest convenient respirator, purged and fitted, and breathed from allegedly purified air as the cubicle created by the blast curtain filled with nanoscrubber foam.
