TechNoir@Rainbow'sEnd

Tech Noir @ Rainbow's End
A short story by J.B. Pravda

Lousy stock for fees in too many clients' gizmo offerings and what he
had to show for it was that 'intellectual property' was one of those
lofty-sounding legalisms that failed to give its fearless Lord
Protector the cushy, not to mention soft, landing in the Realm of Large
Coinage, whose chief export was that very coin he had expected for his
trouble. Now he was forced to 'take stock', and this time, of his life.
While no angel, his mind's gaze was definitely homeward, as in
Manhattan. A mere three years prior to his now tabloidized life story,
for which he limned the working title 'Moribund in LA', he had been a
comer on Wall Street, until the future ex-Ms. Zigster had lured him
with hype supplied by the 'New Greeleys of Greed', as she approvingly
called her well-placed sources, to what they blithely called the 'Mecca
of Tech-a', California.
Having now lost both that gold bug's bite and its 130 pound bloodless
cheerleader, that island home was looking uniquely superior. So
dysfunctional was he that, feeling particularly fatigued, he found
himself imagining being feted at his homecoming to a much-relieved New
York by the descendants of Ms. Lazarus, ready to announce that he was
emblematic of her statuary musing.

Zigster was technically broke, a virtual cashless society to the
millions of cooperating, dutiful cells of the multicellular being he
and the world-at-large, including his increasingly hostile ex-wife and
creditors, knew as Clauson Zigster, Esquire. He felt he had let them
down, at least his steadfast biological supporters, there through good
and bad times, asking only the occasional steak, a few hours sleep and
fairly regular dental hygiene.

No question about it, his psyche's Department of Defense was arguing
for Defcon 5; his once predatorily aggressive brain cells had suffered
white collar's version of PTSD, the battle damage assessment he
gathered from his failing morale, due in no small part to his latest
flop in the hi-tech world to which he once paid homage, an IPO startup
which produces----- make that used to produce----combination cellular
phone/remote digital personal genitalia vibrator re-chargers,
pocket-sized for the misanthropic stay-late at the office workaholic
crowd.

The fact that he was the titular President did not boost his social
fortunes as he was now widely rumored to be possibly impotent in more
ways than one; come to think of it, the word 'titular' only compounded
the problematic nature of his publicly perceived gender preference, a
very cruel outcome on the Street of Dreams indeed.

The upscale Tex-Mex bistro client where he still had freebies for
services had been the destination he had in mind when, seeing that the
day was a bust, he decided to grant, without hearing, his own motion
for a change of venue from his depressingly inactive office. As he
liberally taste-tested his favorite liquid drug, his cell phone
parodied Beethoven's Fifth, the rare 'tin-can' recording once
believed
[intentionally left blank]

lost until rediscovered by those enterprising cellular phone makers he
once prized as kultural icons, as in kitsch.

"Zigster", he barked, noticing with great displeasure that his phone
was flashing 'low battery' despite the fact that he had just recharged
it with his complementary, well, you know.

"Meester Z, one of your colleagues gave me your number, said you were
right man to see", a Slavic voice boasted.

"Well, my battery is about gone, can you contact me at the office
tomorrow?"

"Not good for my situation; is it possible could meet for drink in hour
or so?" The caller, one Ivan Atrovsky, spoke good English, but with a
Hollywood Russian accent.

"You caught me at a good time, you know Speedy G's on Sunset?"

"Sure, see you there in 30; I am wearing double-breasted
blazer&;#8230;" they both heard the phone static off and headed for
the Mexican joint, Claw wondering if there had been a performance bond
posted by his client/manufacturer of this increasingly useless device;
he would check with some of his more predatory classmates seen all over
town on billboards in the morning, if he remembered, a major coup
lately; it also occurred to him that he would have to make those calls
from his landline phone due to the really shoddy product he had helped
take to market, all these considerations succeeding in having put him
below his previous personal 'best' on the depressometer that used to be
a functioning brainpan.

The Russian economy resembled a barter system pretty much out of stuff
to barter thanks to steroid capitalism, mainlined by the hungry
opportunistic survivors of the old black market apparatchik system; the
most popular pusher was the IMF, which these operators saw as the
world's largest ATM, in their opinion the best 'fixer' their own money
could buy, the price being a mere couple of Slavic kisses on the cheek
by a well-placed former Kremlin economic official turned capitalist
entrepreneur-----they called it Karl's Karma, complete with cases of
Stoly and suddenly affordable Western mistresses. "From Russia, with
love&;#8230;." Was their standard cover note with each
official-looking request for debt restructuring.

Ivan Atrovsky had grown up thinking America was full of cows and
cowboys in funny hats. When he got there he realized it was just the
Presidential class who wore them and that the cows had been long since
replaced by hamburger joints stamping out barely edible cow parts, with
assorted condiments of your choice.

But he also knew that P.T. Barnum and H.L. Mencken had been American
and those pithy observations about their countrymen's wits still held
true. It was gonna be too easy.
He had a close pal from the old Soviet days, former KGB, now
freelancing with shitty pirated computer game CDs and some very
interesting high tech gadgetry they both wanted to push in the West in
the latest growth industry: industrial espionage.
Stealing laptops loaded with secrets was okay for low level schmucks
tired of purse-snatching; besides, the victims had wised up, making it
a low percentage deal, the chubby wrists of fat-cats now donning
Cartier-styled handcuffs, some fashionably weird industrial jewelry
complete with titanium reinforcement, signaling the covetous world just
how important they were and, for the even more egomaniacal, traveling
with the corporate version of a mercenary Praetorian Guard to
boot.

This spy stuff was best left to, well, the best, and the KGB had been
kicking American ass for countless government fiscal years, before the
capitalist virus had been contracted by their increasingly underpaid
human assets, that is; now, their gear would be put to work in the
service of individual Russian enterprise, for big profits in lieu of
'Hero of the Soviet Union' medallions stamped onto faux gold.

Zigster was sitting at the deserted bar when Atrovsky walked in with
two younger stampings from the dream factory the Greeks knew as Eros,
supplying, under some delightful exclusive output (or was it put-out?)
contract, the staple-studded middle pages of Penthouse and Playboy,
where the fasteners seemed to act-out your most private fantasies,
seeming to grope through a self-created door, ajar, leading to barely
hidden splendor (or, splendid hidden bareness, take your pick, really,
the wordplay combinations are fun but the foreplay is far more
promising, he mused).
He figured it was the seemingly endless supply of these broads who had
helped to ruin the fortunes of his latest IPO and, in turn, his. Where
did they all come from----wasn't America supposed to be 50\%+ obese?
Maybe it was all to the good: he could possibly dispel that impotency
rumor which had really thrown him into unprecedented personal
depression by several orders of magnitude, and that would be a very
good thing, he pretended to reason, given the already vulnerable
reptilian sensibilities emanating from that multimillion-celled graying
kingdom within, whose headquarters ran both his heads, it seemed; after
all, it's a scientific fact that your thoughts create neuropeptides
throughout your body, the little bastards having either good or ill
effect depending on your attitude when you're 'thinking' thoughts; he
stopped himself, realizing he had, according to that science, just
needlessly furloughed several thousands of those cells, minimum, the
ones involved with rational processes, now wanted at the business
'front'. Fuck
it, rational neurons won't bring me happiness, when I'm growing old,
the now heavily-engaged Dean Martin part of his cerebellum told him,
busy processing a previously imbibed Tequila of self-pitying
provenance.
"Mr. Z, I presume&;#8230;.." Ivan glided across he tiled floor with
his two succubae prompting really wild fantasies of tireless undead
maids sucking his tired blood----hey, why fight it: you get to sleep
late and never die, advised Dean Martin.
"Yes, where is your blazer?" Clauson tried not to see through the
see-through garment failing to pose as a halter top on the two
identically dressed Sapphites (many of his rational faculties, having
now joined the struggling-to-concentrate-on-business-agenda guerillas
in pockets of resistance in his libidinous limbic system, thought it
helped his ego and his composure if he nominated them as lesbians);
neither that wasted classification nor such partizan 'efforts' were
successful, his non-rational party-in-power having reminded him how
much he enjoyed observing virtually nude hyperactive (attractive)
lesbians.
"Felt overdressed, understand?!"

Ivan laughed the laugh of those already-sexually-intimate-with-their
companions, whom others, poor scintillated slobs, were left only to
undress with their eyes, assuming, of course, that they were not
impotent; no matter, there are certain non-clinical situations, this
being one of them, which could effect a proverbial---- (as in
Biblical)-----faith healing, the now reinforced cells in charge of
hedonism fantasized. His scrotum, so used to a shrunken subsistence of
late, largely due to that certain rumor associated with a certain stock
offering, was experiencing double digit growth&;#8230;unlike the
stock offering catalyst to his recent quasi-eunuch status. Standing,
erect, was not a safe option. He was bemused by his self-deprecating
wordplay, promising himself to knock it off, as it took away from the
energy-intensive work his eyes were engaged in.

"Call me Claw, everyone has since I was a kid" as he extended his hand
to Atrovsky, the aforementioned bookends from the Eros, Inc. penthouse
office suite simply tittered, posing for the imaginative x-ray camera
his mind had briefly united to become.
"Like it, nice ring and easy to remember: 'See-Law', yes?" his speaking
merging somehow with laughing.

The servile restaurant manager played along, bowing and scraping, it
having been prearranged by Claw with him that he might be hosting a
possible client with cash for a change, ushering them to a spacious
semi-private booth.

"What should we talk about, then?" Claw wasted no time, his mind
noticing his creditors seated with them like some pissed off 'Banquo
Brudders' from Newark amidst the preliminaries. Besides, with his own
'Lady MacZigster Doll' gone, the only killing he was doing was
self-inflicted, his hubris registering in the minus column.

"Technology, what else?" smirked Ivan.
Ivan motioned to one of the girls to return to his car to retrieve his
briefcase. Claw was reminded that standing up was going to be an
agonizing Groucho Marx parody for most of the evening.

"Not my favorite subject lately; what are the details?" Claw mouthed
the words as he had so many times before, this time with hangdog
effect.

"I am glad you asked", Ivan placing his briefcase on a chair.

"Want to market North American rights, with your help" Ivan displayed a
detailed mock up of what looked like communications equipment.

"This is lawyer client conference, correct, so you cannot tell about?"
Ivan knew the answer, but his question paid perfunctory respect to his
soon to be designated operative.

"Certainly" replied Claw; he was definitely curious.

"Can pick up space shuttle crew on this stuff" Ivan puffed.

"You mean track them?" Claw was still stuck in the 20th century,
strictly gadgetry, slapped together in the Orient or Mexico.
"Mean hear if they fart!" Ivan proudly revealed the less attractive
qualities of the merchandise.
"Where did you get this? You own this?" Claw was beyond curious
now.
"Friend of mine owns; we only lease, you understand, with our
technicians, nobody going to reverse engineer shit with our stuff" Ivan
pronounced with the certainty that used to surround the failure of some
of his old Commie gang's Five Year Plans.
Claw looked to the place where his personalized Banquo 'family'
had
been seated to find 'them' absent (he had, in a fit of Greek-inspired
bathos, conjured a whole Scottish mafia-like organization from this
growing group of debt-holders, headed by the dreaded---and pale---Don
B. himself, who showed up every time he so much as tried to eat a
bloody hamburger, a fitting description, as he sometimes saw himself as
the bleeding burger; he needed to see his shrink soon, but he was now
persuaded that even he, also owed, was probably working secretly with
the Family); simultaneously, his left brain cells, specifically the 'do
the
[intentionally left blank]

math' department, were doing it, the math; they would be well rewarded,
he signaled them electro-chemically and their return message was
pleasing even if it did not, directly, involve erectile function.
Apparently his right brain could not be reached for purposes of
pleasure unless given a strong override incentive by Ivan's unbookish
bookends.

"What about the White House?" Claw was into the deal already.

"Who cares, nothing but bullshit, off color remarks by hacks and arms
merchants; 'push button, not push button', really tired Cold War shit,
habit hard to break; no, real action is Wall Street related, for
openers" Ivan postulated.

"How about a demonstration-----not here of course; say in my office,
soon; when can you come in?" Claw was now living up to his
sobriquet.

"Can do next week, no problema, want my technicians there. In meantime,
prepare papers, blah, blah, blah, we meet next Tuesday, is
acceptable?"

Claw remembered a basic question from the foggy 'break glass in
emergency' part of his brain stamped 'law school', something about
rights.

"What about the fundamental privacy concerns, have you done any legal
interference on that potential deal killer?" He hoped the answer was
yes.
"Law only broken if caught" was what his brain was feeding to his
conscious mind----but had he actually heard that or was it the answer
he was hoping not to hear? His consciousness came back into Speedy G's
time/space just in time to hear the real answer.
"Hey, only leasing technology: what Mr. X does with it, we don't know,
right?" Ivan must have gotten that one from some lawyer show on TV, but
it was practically correct. "Guns don't kill people, people kill
people" he smirked, verbally.
"So your techs can operate it from anywhere for customers, never having
contact with the customer except say electronically, arms' length?" He
thought he understood the potential now, with very little downside:
after all, no one could hold you liable to prosecution for conspiracy,
that sort of thing, if all you did was provide the generic means,
without the specific intent to do harm to Mr. X; hey, nobody went after
Ma Bell when some schmucks got together over her lines on an illegal
plan. He made a mental note to get several outside hypothetical
opinions until he found the one he liked among the 'experts.'
"How can electron be prosecuted: what, Bill Gates is responsible for
what some creep does with his programs?" Ivan smiled the invisible
smile of a puppeteer. (What if I count that as one of the opinions,
Claw wondered).
"I'll have the preliminary papers drawn Tuesday" Claw heard himself
saying, still aglow at the cellular level, as far as his brain could
determine, anyway, at the undefined 'top' of the Mobius strip of his
sensory input.

"Good; now, for celebration, is good luck in Motherland, but with real
Vodka" Ivan insisted.

"Know of good Russian place" Ivan gave the signal for his dual harem to
rise, followed by his new legal appendage. He handed a Franklin to the
stunned Mexican proprietor. Claw just winked at him, feeling as though
he had just had some major prediction confirmed.

Good&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..maybe&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..excited;
happy&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.stay
alert&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.more
glucose&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..process
alcohol&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;too
much&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..adrenaline
released&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.blood
to penis&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..shut down
reasoning,
overload&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;

Electrochemical conversation was underway in a Russian doll universe
only recently discovered and now known as the Clauson Zigster Nebula;
it was the background white noise of his personal Big Bang, which had
occurred nanoseconds before in his psychosomatic penthouse.

Like its tousle-haired larger cousin, its Einstein was busy divining
its secrets, down to the always-mysterious black holes.

Just how Claw had arrived home was problematic, a strange experiment in
time travel, somehow successful. His succubus had dematerialized while
his frontal lobes were on blissful hiatus so there was no way to
question one of nature's most pleasant mysteries.

He had the distinct feeling that that remotely similar thing he had
occasionally done with his ex-wife was confined to a vastly lesser
universe------why, for that matter, wasn't she? He'd have to work on
that, maybe by recreational chemical frying of those unfortunate brain
cells imprisoned by memory patterns of 'her'. As he downloaded this
mother lode of Dada-like data, he was certain he had encountered every
incentive in this universe last night to pursue that happy microscopic
suicide------- he looked forward to his next encounter with her
expanding universal charms.

Zokcuf technologies, LLC had effectively, and stealthily, cornered the
'nanotech' research market and had plenty of appetite for a whole range
of other high tech acquisitions. Certain analysts had wryly attributed
this 'below the radar' ploy to some sort of Napoleonic complex
affecting management.

They had a point: as far as anyone knew, they were all midgets and
dwarves. The intentionally transparent name decrypted was FuckOZ and as
they were a public company their trading symbol, the joke went, should
be MWA----midgets with attitude.

Josef Diminutov, a Ukrainian national, was leader of a shadowy cartel
consisting of the more sinister elements of the Yellow Brick Road Gang,
a/k/a The Four &; Under Group, a front holding company for a mixed
bag of technology holdings, most of whose assets were on the cutting
edge of 21st century high tech applications.

The FBI files read like tales from the dark side of the moon for the
strangely misbegotten.

The gang were an assortment of escaped childhood circus performers and
freaks, mostly from armpits in and around Soviet Eastern Europe, said
to be descendants of bit-part extras used-up by Hollywood for weird
perspective shots or freakish effects, convinced that the child-size
tights they were forced to wear, not to mention the shocking absence of
any real healthcare related union style benefits, had effectively
compromised their physical development, compounded by the consequent
overall negative impact upon any real prospects they might otherwise
have had of ever sitting at the big people's table at any potentially
important dining experience. Privately, they rationalized this
psychosocial slight, as they had long despaired of any real
understanding of the fork, salad or entr?e, pretending to pretend that
it just didn't matter, should they ever have had such an
opportunity-----a kind of compensating justice that only made things
worse when they were really hungry for anything other than fast food,
their fallback option, especially the Drive-Thru window or, as they
self-pityingly referred to it, the Equalizer Express. In their depths
(which, let's face it, is not all that deep) huge wrongs dwelt, wrongs
that would be righted with wrongdoing, however right they may have been
in feeling wronged by the tragic loss of their rights, right? Having
grown tired of half-hearted half-measures from the full-bodied world,
they would now remake the world in their image, insuring as their first
step a mandatory metric system designed to inflate their 'standing' in
society, one they would fiendishly manipulate to operate according to
the rules of golf, where the lowest number is triumphant; it was going
to be glorious, complete with a new Napoleonic perspective, calling it
Waterloo Redux, invoking the childish 'do over' rule resorted to by all
physical misfits who can't cut it against the so-called normals.

The psychological profiles had identified one particular trauma,
however, that made these guys and gals much more than half a handful;
the cruel exploitation of their kind by the freak-of-the-month
club-minded voyeurs of the movie industry; they regarded one film above
all as their Bosch-like rendition of hellish doom, vowing to some day
avenge their suffering brothers and sisters of the ghetto the world and
MGM had shamelessly idealized as Munchkin-land.
Crucial to their plan of vengeance was the alleged deliberate
placement by the Oz politicos----and their vertically challenged
lackeys, of the Yellow Brick Road smack in the midst of this already
oppressed and servile community, despite an abundance of data showing
the projected traffic along this thoroughfare by pilgrims off to see
you know who to be quite a lot, and indefinitely. Added insult was the
landlord's requirement that the inhabitants of that ghetto were to be
present on a half-time basis based, of course, upon 'normal' man
hours-----yielding the unintended though cruel result that every
Munchkinite was on call virtually all the time. This, then, was the
oppressive arithmetic of vertical Fascism, they its disregarded
'digits', doomed to a half-share in this American&;#8230;NIGHTMARE!
"Follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow"&;#8230;OUR asses; they
were half again as much oppressed and vowed to redouble, no re-redouble
their efforts to achieve parity through whole dollars and the equality
they brought.

The profiles somberly concluded, however, that the ultimate catalyst of
the gang's unpredictable wrath was the exclusion of access to that road
by the Munchkinites in favor of inorganic beings without hearts, brains
or balls enough to ensure the safety of what anyone could see were
rather small, really hard to see (no street lighting was possible due
to cost overruns at Emerald City Hall) pint-sized pedestrians, forced
to stand in harm's way, nonetheless.

The cowardly schmuck behind the curtain, and his co-conspirators, would
pay dearly for this, especially for their arrogant admission to those
who had traveled the needlessly congested 'YBR' that the trip was
really unnecessary in the first place: it was really great seeing them,
for a fee (hey, Emerald City carries with it heavy amortization), it
was hoped they had enjoyed the elaborate theme park atmosphere created
just for "them"-----so long as they didn't have a street address ending
with the numeral "1/2" [for this 'dis' the gang would exact some
especially harsh retribution]---------but, you see, you don't need
anything, you're terrific just the way you are, unless, of course,
you're one of those you-know-what's.

The gang's leadership had adopted as their outward symbol of defiant
unity the elaborate costume of the ever-superior Dr. Loveless of 'Wild
Wild West' infamy, a cult hero owing to both the obvious and his enmity
to the American way, one that he and his huge little army would exploit
as in the days of the Wild West, in their diabolic determination to
create a new Wilder West where they would possess the high ground; it
was just such a customized get-up that Josef Diminutov donned as he
walked into the offices of Ivan
Atrovsky&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230; for their, now, regular
Monday meeting.

"I am sure, yes" Carlos Estrada whisperingly replied to the queries of
his handler. "And the god dam Franklin he gave me was fake, mar
icon!"
"Good work, and don't worry, we're on it" assured the agent at the
other end.

"Josef, comrade!" the deep voice of the huge Ivan Atrovsky had been
expelled from its mouth-like cavern with the relative force of a squall
in the direction of his miniature visitor.
"Don't get up," squeaked the sensitive little man dressed in 19th
century attire. "I like you where I can make eye contact" added the
shrimp.
He was there to finalize the deal he had nursed for years: the ability
to learn the kind of inside financial information only dreamt of by
average crooks on Wall Street. He and his crew also had plans for every
lottery in the world, and what they couldn't divine from their taller
adversaries conversations would be gotten by way of moles planted in
their midst thanks to the ADA and equal fucking protection.
"How much" Diminutov demanded, having, he thought, been put off for too
long with preliminaries.
"Please, please, these things take time; lawyer working on papers for
license&;#8230;" Atrovsky was interrupted by the sudden thump of the
little visitor's booted feet on his desk. Grabbing Ivan's tie he
screamed "How long have I known you and you're giving me this crap!! I
ought a put one of my guys in your girlfriend's luggage when you're not
looking next time you shack up with one of them!" fumed the compact man
as he seemed to dance back and forth on the desktop, deftly bypassing
large photos of Atrovsky's mistresses.
"Calm down, Joey. None of this is necessary!"
Climbing down from this relative Everest, he replied "You promised me
first exclusive rights to this thing for North America; every week for
the last three months its been delays; what, did Vegas get to you, that
it?" Whined the half-man.
"Don't be crazy, they will love it if you walk in with your new
billions; no, like I told you, technical legal problems, being worked
out as we&;#8230; scream" Ivan smiled.
"Alright, but we want complete demonstrations, got it?" Diminutov was
adamantine and Ivan knew not to say no, this guy had a reputation in
the old Soviet days.
"Deal; will contact you later this week when we are ready, ok?"
Ivan realized he couldn't see his guest any more. "Joey, where the hell
are you?"
Ivan felt a metallic object poking him in the ass; Joey was under his
chair. Then, the poking stopped.
The office door slammed; as Ivan got up to look around, a little man he
hadn't even seen plopped into his chair, trying to put up his boots on
the desk without success, and then standing on the desk. "Just see that
you do as you said, Atrovsky" he squealed, jumping onto the floor and
exiting out the door before Ivan could answer him.

Agent Kitsch was pacing in their smallish office when the report came
in.
Turning to the bearer of the startling tidings, he addressed his junior
colleagues. "What the fuck is this?"
"Sir, it seems that the Russians have been after Diminutov for some
time. They have reason to believe that he intends to bankrupt every
lottery system in the world once he gets his hands on what he thinks is
twenty second century gear that doesn't exist" was the reply from Agent
Dowdy. "According to their field operatives they're using some
unsuspecting IP lawyer to keep it real, for now" she added.
"Why the hell would be have believed them about this technology in the
first place, he's not stupid?" Was the question, wasn't it? "Best we
can tell, these two go back a long way, got Dimi's family out of the
gulag and forced labor camps for, well, undesirables" augmented Agent
Swanson. "Add to that his all-consuming hard-on for Hollywood and the
West and you get suspension of disbelief."
"So what we have to do is go along with some sting-like setups like
he's actually succeeding, right?"
"That's the part I don't like; what if these Russians are in on it and
freelancing?" offered Agent Dowdy.
"No problemo; we see to it that they get paid in counterfeit or marked
currency!" emphasized Kitsch.
"No go, boss" Dowdy opined; "The Russians re-invented ersatz currency
techniques, it won't fly" was her closer.
"Got entrapment written all over it" Swanson piled on.
"Look, clear it through counsel if it makes ya happy; all I know is
nobody walks away from this wrap, Russians or midgets, got it?" Kitsch
stormed out of their neat freak office, reflecting upon how it
wasn't like a real cop's office should be, like in the old days, using
their door to make his nonverbal exclamatory observation.

Tuesday, comeback day. Claw was two blocks from the office, running a
little early for a change; better call the office, just to be safe,
have everything set to go, his brain prompted when it countermanded
that instruction based on a fairly new neural databank labeled "Lay off
secretarial staff, immediately", dated last week. No biggie, the dox
were all on diskette from countless prior deals, his wet ware consoled
from yet another set of neurons in the clich? department: "Nothing new
under the sun, boy chick." While the boy chick add-on did seem to be of
hackneyed origin, it gave him momentary pause, quickly overcome by both
his logic net-----it was associational, that's all, 'Ivan, remember,
your new ticket to the Bigs?'------And the blinking red light on the
phone he was about to use to call the staff he no longer had. 'Get a
real charger' was the prevailing command and he found himself at the
gadgetorium run by the oldster he sometimes popped in on to get the
real scoop about the tech world's next hit/flop. The guy had warned him
about that last deal and Claw winced at the thought, emanating from the
anxiety section of his 'necktop', of one more 'told you so.' Glancing
at his now ridiculously expensive watch, he noticed that it, too,
needed power, as in new battery: Jesus H!
"Sorry my friend, but nobody's allowed behind the curtain----insurance,
get it?" The wizened old-timer gushed, without any specific tone of
alarm. "Here, I'll bring it out for you; this one, right?" he pointed
to a like-new recharger mate for the phone in Claw's hand.
"Good choice, very compact, light" was the technical blurb applicable
to the cellular phone from the front room Claw had seemed to have
appropriated. The old man knew how to handle such delicate situations,
especially when the potential lifter was so well dressed.
"Were you planning on me billing you, Prince Charles?" He quipped only
hinting at condescension.
"I do need a new one, one that works" Claw managed this pitiful
restatement of the obvious, at least to him, from the 'what's going on,
anyway' confused emotion bundle, hosted by what was really a second
rate bunch of neurons----he needed new ones, ones that worked, his
higher brain functions conspiringly mused.
"Need, shmeed," chortled the old one; "it's all about 'want' today, you
hear me?" the old master now waxed shamanic.
"What do you truly 'need', eh---------your brain, the courage to trust
in it, but not completely, no: it's the 'heart' that sees you through,
and you won't find that in here, yes?" posited the gizmo guru.
"You know what you need, you need to hurry up and decide what you need,
because I'm forced to close early today-----going ballooning today with
my cockamamie nephew, in the desert, yet!" This breakout news seemed to
have not registered with Claw at all, his skullstuff oscillating
randomly between dazed and seriously confused.
"Look, you appear to be a nice fellow, what with your designer suit and
tasteful watch------did you know it had stopped------tell you what,
have a cup of coffee, on me and stop and smell some roses in the park
across the street"; the coffee was strong, Turkish style, maybe, his
yuppie know-it-all zero sum center observed. It seemed to bring him
back to the inner solar system enough to begin processing the wisdom
offerings of the old fellow who reminded him of someone from his
childhood that his now overloaded CPU had put on the 'later' pile of
afterthoughts.
"There's a very comfortable bench over there and it's a lovely day; at
least you don't incline to vertigo, eh, just think of me in that
mishugina basket, going higher and higher; but, he is my only boy
chick"; this reference helped, but Claw no longer knew why.
As Claw made for the door and the bench he had been advised to visit,
the now disembodied old man's comforting voice bade him farewell from
the back room behind the sheer: "Remember, you already have what you
really need: stop thinking with that overrated brain-----don't get me
wrong, still better than all these machines------use your heart, it has
its own voice, but you can't hear it unless that brain is quiet, it
will help you find the courage to live a little, like me, in that crazy
balloon!" and he was gone.

On the long old-fashioned bench was an older gent with a kind face,
feeding the birds. Claw seemed enfolded by a warm breeze as he slowly
lowered his weary load at the other end.
"What's a young feller like you doing here in the middle of the work
day-----leaving it to the other rats, are ya?" the kindly Clarence-like
person at the opposite end submitted for Claw's approval.
"Not really sure and, well, my watch has stopped, need a new
batt&;#8230;." Claw's eyes, for the first time, were absorbing the
large old-fashioned signage atop the doorway of the shop he had just
exited.
"What line of work you in that's making you so sad?" was the
$64,000 dollar question, now severely adjusted for inflation to the
tune of several digits left of the decimal.
"Uh, lawyer, actually&;#8230;and you?" was Claw's desultory verbal
reflex, now reduced to something only slightly superior to the
preverbal gruntings of his long ago sapiens sapiens ancestors.
"Me, I'm obsolete and glad of it; no sir, don't need me anymore" the
old gent beamed.
"Why?" Claw uttered, sounding more like his distant forbears than
ever.
"Well, ya see my line was moving houses-----that's right, jacked those
suckers up with hydraulic lifts, hand-cranked, hard work that, in my
day, though it gave me strong hands for opening jars and such; had to
give it up when-----and it really wasn't our fault, no siree-----Act a
God, insurance people called it, strong wind came up outta nowhere,
tossed that house up in the air pritnear 30 foot or so. Just as well
though, nobody needs that service no more, just tear the old things
down, don't you know."
'Ozzie's Pawn, Loan &; Emerald Dealers' read the deep green sign he
now wondered how he had not noticed on his billion trips down this
street.
"Where'd you say you were in business?" came the query from the depths
of his right brain, childhood mystery bureau.
"Didn't------you alright, look a bit pale-------guess the sunshine'll
do you some good, eh------Manhattan&;#8230;Manhattan, Kansas. Yeah,
I like it alright out here, was real nice when I came out here, desert
air, no more though; guess there's no place like home."
Claw's eyes fell upon his feet, which he found in command of his
slavish shoes clicking together, at the heels, in a reflexive
dislodging of general detritus apparently garnered somewhere on the
yellowing bricked park path.. As he faced Eastward, his heart, now
audible, told him all would be well, even or, especially, without
Russian clients.

Tech Noir @ Rainbow's End
A short story by J.B. Pravda

Lousy stock for fees in too many clients' gizmo offerings and what he
had to show for it was that 'intellectual property' was one of those
lofty-sounding legalisms that failed to give its fearless Lord
Protector the cushy, not to mention soft, landing in the Realm of Large
Coinage, whose chief export was that very coin he had expected for his
trouble. Now he was forced to 'take stock', and this time, of his life.
While no angel, his mind's gaze was definitely homeward, as in
Manhattan. A mere three years prior to his now tabloidized life story,
for which he limned the working title 'Moribund in LA', he had been a
comer on Wall Street, until the future ex-Ms. Zigster had lured him
with hype supplied by the 'New Greeleys of Greed', as she approvingly
called her well-placed sources, to what they blithely called the 'Mecca
of Tech-a', California.
Having now lost both that gold bug's bite and its 130 pound bloodless
cheerleader, that island home was looking uniquely superior. So
dysfunctional was he that, feeling particularly fatigued, he found
himself imagining being feted at his homecoming to a much-relieved New
York by the descendants of Ms. Lazarus, ready to announce that he was
emblematic of her statuary musing.

Zigster was technically broke, a virtual cashless society to the
millions of cooperating, dutiful cells of the multicellular being he
and the world-at-large, including his increasingly hostile ex-wife and
creditors, knew as Clauson Zigster, Esquire. He felt he had let them
down, at least his steadfast biological supporters, there through good
and bad times, asking only the occasional steak, a few hours sleep and
fairly regular dental hygiene.

No question about it, his psyche's Department of Defense was arguing
for Defcon 5; his once predatorily aggressive brain cells had suffered
white collar's version of PTSD, the battle damage assessment he
gathered from his failing morale, due in no small part to his latest
flop in the hi-tech world to which he once paid homage, an IPO startup
which produces----- make that used to produce----combination cellular
phone/remote digital personal genitalia vibrator re-chargers,
pocket-sized for the misanthropic stay-late at the office workaholic
crowd.

The fact that he was the titular President did not boost his social
fortunes as he was now widely rumored to be possibly impotent in more
ways than one; come to think of it, the word 'titular' only compounded
the problematic nature of his publicly perceived gender preference, a
very cruel outcome on the Street of Dreams indeed.

The upscale Tex-Mex bistro client where he still had freebies for
services had been the destination he had in mind when, seeing that the
day was a bust, he decided to grant, without hearing, his own motion
for a change of venue from his depressingly inactive office. As he
liberally taste-tested his favorite liquid drug, his cell phone
parodied Beethoven's Fifth, the rare 'tin-can' recording once
believed
[intentionally left blank]

lost until rediscovered by those enterprising cellular phone makers he
once prized as kultural icons, as in kitsch.

"Zigster", he barked, noticing with great displeasure that his phone
was flashing 'low battery' despite the fact that he had just recharged
it with his complementary, well, you know.

"Meester Z, one of your colleagues gave me your number, said you were
right man to see", a Slavic voice boasted.

"Well, my battery is about gone, can you contact me at the office
tomorrow?"

"Not good for my situation; is it possible could meet for drink in hour
or so?" The caller, one Ivan Atrovsky, spoke good English, but with a
Hollywood Russian accent.

"You caught me at a good time, you know Speedy G's on Sunset?"

"Sure, see you there in 30; I am wearing double-breasted
blazer&;#8230;" they both heard the phone static off and headed for
the Mexican joint, Claw wondering if there had been a performance bond
posted by his client/manufacturer of this increasingly useless device;
he would check with some of his more predatory classmates seen all over
town on billboards in the morning, if he remembered, a major coup
lately; it also occurred to him that he would have to make those calls
from his landline phone due to the really shoddy product he had helped
take to market, all these considerations succeeding in having put him
below his previous personal 'best' on the depressometer that used to be
a functioning brainpan.

The Russian economy resembled a barter system pretty much out of stuff
to barter thanks to steroid capitalism, mainlined by the hungry
opportunistic survivors of the old black market apparatchik system; the
most popular pusher was the IMF, which these operators saw as the
world's largest ATM, in their opinion the best 'fixer' their own money
could buy, the price being a mere couple of Slavic kisses on the cheek
by a well-placed former Kremlin economic official turned capitalist
entrepreneur-----they called it Karl's Karma, complete with cases of
Stoly and suddenly affordable Western mistresses. "From Russia, with
love&;#8230;." Was their standard cover note with each
official-looking request for debt restructuring.

Ivan Atrovsky had grown up thinking America was full of cows and
cowboys in funny hats. When he got there he realized it was just the
Presidential class who wore them and that the cows had been long since
replaced by hamburger joints stamping out barely edible cow parts, with
assorted condiments of your choice.

But he also knew that P.T. Barnum and H.L. Mencken had been American
and those pithy observations about their countrymen's wits still held
true. It was gonna be too easy.
He had a close pal from the old Soviet days, former KGB, now
freelancing with shitty pirated computer game CDs and some very
interesting high tech gadgetry they both wanted to push in the West in
the latest growth industry: industrial espionage.
Stealing laptops loaded with secrets was okay for low level schmucks
tired of purse-snatching; besides, the victims had wised up, making it
a low percentage deal, the chubby wrists of fat-cats now donning
Cartier-styled handcuffs, some fashionably weird industrial jewelry
complete with titanium reinforcement, signaling the covetous world just
how important they were and, for the even more egomaniacal, traveling
with the corporate version of a mercenary Praetorian Guard to
boot.

This spy stuff was best left to, well, the best, and the KGB had been
kicking American ass for countless government fiscal years, before the
capitalist virus had been contracted by their increasingly underpaid
human assets, that is; now, their gear would be put to work in the
service of individual Russian enterprise, for big profits in lieu of
'Hero of the Soviet Union' medallions stamped onto faux gold.

Zigster was sitting at the deserted bar when Atrovsky walked in with
two younger stampings from the dream factory the Greeks knew as Eros,
supplying, under some delightful exclusive output (or was it put-out?)
contract, the staple-studded middle pages of Penthouse and Playboy,
where the fasteners seemed to act-out your most private fantasies,
seeming to grope through a self-created door, ajar, leading to barely
hidden splendor (or, splendid hidden bareness, take your pick, really,
the wordplay combinations are fun but the foreplay is far more
promising, he mused).
He figured it was the seemingly endless supply of these broads who had
helped to ruin the fortunes of his latest IPO and, in turn, his. Where
did they all come from----wasn't America supposed to be 50\%+ obese?
Maybe it was all to the good: he could possibly dispel that impotency
rumor which had really thrown him into unprecedented personal
depression by several orders of magnitude, and that would be a very
good thing, he pretended to reason, given the already vulnerable
reptilian sensibilities emanating from that multimillion-celled graying
kingdom within, whose headquarters ran both his heads, it seemed; after
all, it's a scientific fact that your thoughts create neuropeptides
throughout your body, the little bastards having either good or ill
effect depending on your attitude when you're 'thinking' thoughts; he
stopped himself, realizing he had, according to that science, just
needlessly furloughed several thousands of those cells, minimum, the
ones involved with rational processes, now wanted at the business
'front'. Fuck
it, rational neurons won't bring me happiness, when I'm growing old,
the now heavily-engaged Dean Martin part of his cerebellum told him,
busy processing a previously imbibed Tequila of self-pitying
provenance.
"Mr. Z, I presume&;#8230;.." Ivan glided across he tiled floor with
his two succubae prompting really wild fantasies of tireless undead
maids sucking his tired blood----hey, why fight it: you get to sleep
late and never die, advised Dean Martin.
"Yes, where is your blazer?" Clauson tried not to see through the
see-through garment failing to pose as a halter top on the two
identically dressed Sapphites (many of his rational faculties, having
now joined the struggling-to-concentrate-on-business-agenda guerillas
in pockets of resistance in his libidinous limbic system, thought it
helped his ego and his composure if he nominated them as lesbians);
neither that wasted classification nor such partizan 'efforts' were
successful, his non-rational party-in-power having reminded him how
much he enjoyed observing virtually nude hyperactive (attractive)
lesbians.
"Felt overdressed, understand?!"

Ivan laughed the laugh of those already-sexually-intimate-with-their
companions, whom others, poor scintillated slobs, were left only to
undress with their eyes, assuming, of course, that they were not
impotent; no matter, there are certain non-clinical situations, this
being one of them, which could effect a proverbial---- (as in
Biblical)-----faith healing, the now reinforced cells in charge of
hedonism fantasized. His scrotum, so used to a shrunken subsistence of
late, largely due to that certain rumor associated with a certain stock
offering, was experiencing double digit growth&;#8230;unlike the
stock offering catalyst to his recent quasi-eunuch status. Standing,
erect, was not a safe option. He was bemused by his self-deprecating
wordplay, promising himself to knock it off, as it took away from the
energy-intensive work his eyes were engaged in.

"Call me Claw, everyone has since I was a kid" as he extended his hand
to Atrovsky, the aforementioned bookends from the Eros, Inc. penthouse
office suite simply tittered, posing for the imaginative x-ray camera
his mind had briefly united to become.
"Like it, nice ring and easy to remember: 'See-Law', yes?" his speaking
merging somehow with laughing.

The servile restaurant manager played along, bowing and scraping, it
having been prearranged by Claw with him that he might be hosting a
possible client with cash for a change, ushering them to a spacious
semi-private booth.

"What should we talk about, then?" Claw wasted no time, his mind
noticing his creditors seated with them like some pissed off 'Banquo
Brudders' from Newark amidst the preliminaries. Besides, with his own
'Lady MacZigster Doll' gone, the only killing he was doing was
self-inflicted, his hubris registering in the minus column.

"Technology, what else?" smirked Ivan.
Ivan motioned to one of the girls to return to his car to retrieve his
briefcase. Claw was reminded that standing up was going to be an
agonizing Groucho Marx parody for most of the evening.

"Not my favorite subject lately; what are the details?" Claw mouthed
the words as he had so many times before, this time with hangdog
effect.

"I am glad you asked", Ivan placing his briefcase on a chair.

"Want to market North American rights, with your help" Ivan displayed a
detailed mock up of what looked like communications equipment.

"This is lawyer client conference, correct, so you cannot tell about?"
Ivan knew the answer, but his question paid perfunctory respect to his
soon to be designated operative.

"Certainly" replied Claw; he was definitely curious.

"Can pick up space shuttle crew on this stuff" Ivan puffed.

"You mean track them?" Claw was still stuck in the 20th century,
strictly gadgetry, slapped together in the Orient or Mexico.
"Mean hear if they fart!" Ivan proudly revealed the less attractive
qualities of the merchandise.
"Where did you get this? You own this?" Claw was beyond curious
now.
"Friend of mine owns; we only lease, you understand, with our
technicians, nobody going to reverse engineer shit with our stuff" Ivan
pronounced with the certainty that used to surround the failure of some
of his old Commie gang's Five Year Plans.
Claw looked to the place where his personalized Banquo 'family'
had
been seated to find 'them' absent (he had, in a fit of Greek-inspired
bathos, conjured a whole Scottish mafia-like organization from this
growing group of debt-holders, headed by the dreaded---and pale---Don
B. himself, who showed up every time he so much as tried to eat a
bloody hamburger, a fitting description, as he sometimes saw himself as
the bleeding burger; he needed to see his shrink soon, but he was now
persuaded that even he, also owed, was probably working secretly with
the Family); simultaneously, his left brain cells, specifically the 'do
the
[intentionally left blank]

math' department, were doing it, the math; they would be well rewarded,
he signaled them electro-chemically and their return message was
pleasing even if it did not, directly, involve erectile function.
Apparently his right brain could not be reached for purposes of
pleasure unless given a strong override incentive by Ivan's unbookish
bookends.

"What about the White House?" Claw was into the deal already.

"Who cares, nothing but bullshit, off color remarks by hacks and arms
merchants; 'push button, not push button', really tired Cold War shit,
habit hard to break; no, real action is Wall Street related, for
openers" Ivan postulated.

"How about a demonstration-----not here of course; say in my office,
soon; when can you come in?" Claw was now living up to his
sobriquet.

"Can do next week, no problema, want my technicians there. In meantime,
prepare papers, blah, blah, blah, we meet next Tuesday, is
acceptable?"

Claw remembered a basic question from the foggy 'break glass in
emergency' part of his brain stamped 'law school', something about
rights.

"What about the fundamental privacy concerns, have you done any legal
interference on that potential deal killer?" He hoped the answer was
yes.
"Law only broken if caught" was what his brain was feeding to his
conscious mind----but had he actually heard that or was it the answer
he was hoping not to hear? His consciousness came back into Speedy G's
time/space just in time to hear the real answer.
"Hey, only leasing technology: what Mr. X does with it, we don't know,
right?" Ivan must have gotten that one from some lawyer show on TV, but
it was practically correct. "Guns don't kill people, people kill
people" he smirked, verbally.
"So your techs can operate it from anywhere for customers, never having
contact with the customer except say electronically, arms' length?" He
thought he understood the potential now, with very little downside:
after all, no one could hold you liable to prosecution for conspiracy,
that sort of thing, if all you did was provide the generic means,
without the specific intent to do harm to Mr. X; hey, nobody went after
Ma Bell when some schmucks got together over her lines on an illegal
plan. He made a mental note to get several outside hypothetical
opinions until he found the one he liked among the 'experts.'
"How can electron be prosecuted: what, Bill Gates is responsible for
what some creep does with his programs?" Ivan smiled the invisible
smile of a puppeteer. (What if I count that as one of the opinions,
Claw wondered).
"I'll have the preliminary papers drawn Tuesday" Claw heard himself
saying, still aglow at the cellular level, as far as his brain could
determine, anyway, at the undefined 'top' of the Mobius strip of his
sensory input.

"Good; now, for celebration, is good luck in Motherland, but with real
Vodka" Ivan insisted.

"Know of good Russian place" Ivan gave the signal for his dual harem to
rise, followed by his new legal appendage. He handed a Franklin to the
stunned Mexican proprietor. Claw just winked at him, feeling as though
he had just had some major prediction confirmed.

Good&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..maybe&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..excited;
happy&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.stay
alert&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.more
glucose&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..process
alcohol&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;too
much&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..adrenaline
released&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.blood
to penis&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..shut down
reasoning,
overload&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;

Electrochemical conversation was underway in a Russian doll universe
only recently discovered and now known as the Clauson Zigster Nebula;
it was the background white noise of his personal Big Bang, which had
occurred nanoseconds before in his psychosomatic penthouse.

Like its tousle-haired larger cousin, its Einstein was busy divining
its secrets, down to the always-mysterious black holes.

Just how Claw had arrived home was problematic, a strange experiment in
time travel, somehow successful. His succubus had dematerialized while
his frontal lobes were on blissful hiatus so there was no way to
question one of nature's most pleasant mysteries.

He had the distinct feeling that that remotely similar thing he had
occasionally done with his ex-wife was confined to a vastly lesser
universe------why, for that matter, wasn't she? He'd have to work on
that, maybe by recreational chemical frying of those unfortunate brain
cells imprisoned by memory patterns of 'her'. As he downloaded this
mother lode of Dada-like data, he was certain he had encountered every
incentive in this universe last night to pursue that happy microscopic
suicide------- he looked forward to his next encounter with her
expanding universal charms.

Zokcuf technologies, LLC had effectively, and stealthily, cornered the
'nanotech' research market and had plenty of appetite for a whole range
of other high tech acquisitions. Certain analysts had wryly attributed
this 'below the radar' ploy to some sort of Napoleonic complex
affecting management.

They had a point: as far as anyone knew, they were all midgets and
dwarves. The intentionally transparent name decrypted was FuckOZ and as
they were a public company their trading symbol, the joke went, should
be MWA----midgets with attitude.

Josef Diminutov, a Ukrainian national, was leader of a shadowy cartel
consisting of the more sinister elements of the Yellow Brick Road Gang,
a/k/a The Four &; Under Group, a front holding company for a mixed
bag of technology holdings, most of whose assets were on the cutting
edge of 21st century high tech applications.

The FBI files read like tales from the dark side of the moon for the
strangely misbegotten.

The gang were an assortment of escaped childhood circus performers and
freaks, mostly from armpits in and around Soviet Eastern Europe, said
to be descendants of bit-part extras used-up by Hollywood for weird
perspective shots or freakish effects, convinced that the child-size
tights they were forced to wear, not to mention the shocking absence of
any real healthcare related union style benefits, had effectively
compromised their physical development, compounded by the consequent
overall negative impact upon any real prospects they might otherwise
have had of ever sitting at the big people's table at any potentially
important dining experience. Privately, they rationalized this
psychosocial slight, as they had long despaired of any real
understanding of the fork, salad or entr?e, pretending to pretend that
it just didn't matter, should they ever have had such an
opportunity-----a kind of compensating justice that only made things
worse when they were really hungry for anything other than fast food,
their fallback option, especially the Drive-Thru window or, as they
self-pityingly referred to it, the Equalizer Express. In their depths
(which, let's face it, is not all that deep) huge wrongs dwelt, wrongs
that would be righted with wrongdoing, however right they may have been
in feeling wronged by the tragic loss of their rights, right? Having
grown tired of half-hearted half-measures from the full-bodied world,
they would now remake the world in their image, insuring as their first
step a mandatory metric system designed to inflate their 'standing' in
society, one they would fiendishly manipulate to operate according to
the rules of golf, where the lowest number is triumphant; it was going
to be glorious, complete with a new Napoleonic perspective, calling it
Waterloo Redux, invoking the childish 'do over' rule resorted to by all
physical misfits who can't cut it against the so-called normals.

The psychological profiles had identified one particular trauma,
however, that made these guys and gals much more than half a handful;
the cruel exploitation of their kind by the freak-of-the-month
club-minded voyeurs of the movie industry; they regarded one film above
all as their Bosch-like rendition of hellish doom, vowing to some day
avenge their suffering brothers and sisters of the ghetto the world and
MGM had shamelessly idealized as Munchkin-land.
Crucial to their plan of vengeance was the alleged deliberate
placement by the Oz politicos----and their vertically challenged
lackeys, of the Yellow Brick Road smack in the midst of this already
oppressed and servile community, despite an abundance of data showing
the projected traffic along this thoroughfare by pilgrims off to see
you know who to be quite a lot, and indefinitely. Added insult was the
landlord's requirement that the inhabitants of that ghetto were to be
present on a half-time basis based, of course, upon 'normal' man
hours-----yielding the unintended though cruel result that every
Munchkinite was on call virtually all the time. This, then, was the
oppressive arithmetic of vertical Fascism, they its disregarded
'digits', doomed to a half-share in this American&;#8230;NIGHTMARE!
"Follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow"&;#8230;OUR asses; they
were half again as much oppressed and vowed to redouble, no re-redouble
their efforts to achieve parity through whole dollars and the equality
they brought.

The profiles somberly concluded, however, that the ultimate catalyst of
the gang's unpredictable wrath was the exclusion of access to that road
by the Munchkinites in favor of inorganic beings without hearts, brains
or balls enough to ensure the safety of what anyone could see were
rather small, really hard to see (no street lighting was possible due
to cost overruns at Emerald City Hall) pint-sized pedestrians, forced
to stand in harm's way, nonetheless.

The cowardly schmuck behind the curtain, and his co-conspirators, would
pay dearly for this, especially for their arrogant admission to those
who had traveled the needlessly congested 'YBR' that the trip was
really unnecessary in the first place: it was really great seeing them,
for a fee (hey, Emerald City carries with it heavy amortization), it
was hoped they had enjoyed the elaborate theme park atmosphere created
just for "them"-----so long as they didn't have a street address ending
with the numeral "1/2" [for this 'dis' the gang would exact some
especially harsh retribution]---------but, you see, you don't need
anything, you're terrific just the way you are, unless, of course,
you're one of those you-know-what's.

The gang's leadership had adopted as their outward symbol of defiant
unity the elaborate costume of the ever-superior Dr. Loveless of 'Wild
Wild West' infamy, a cult hero owing to both the obvious and his enmity
to the American way, one that he and his huge little army would exploit
as in the days of the Wild West, in their diabolic determination to
create a new Wilder West where they would possess the high ground; it
was just such a customized get-up that Josef Diminutov donned as he
walked into the offices of Ivan
Atrovsky&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230; for their, now, regular
Monday meeting.

"I am sure, yes" Carlos Estrada whisperingly replied to the queries of
his handler. "And the god dam Franklin he gave me was fake, mar
icon!"
"Good work, and don't worry, we're on it" assured the agent at the
other end.

"Josef, comrade!" the deep voice of the huge Ivan Atrovsky had been
expelled from its mouth-like cavern with the relative force of a squall
in the direction of his miniature visitor.
"Don't get up," squeaked the sensitive little man dressed in 19th
century attire. "I like you where I can make eye contact" added the
shrimp.
He was there to finalize the deal he had nursed for years: the ability
to learn the kind of inside financial information only dreamt of by
average crooks on Wall Street. He and his crew also had plans for every
lottery in the world, and what they couldn't divine from their taller
adversaries conversations would be gotten by way of moles planted in
their midst thanks to the ADA and equal fucking protection.
"How much" Diminutov demanded, having, he thought, been put off for too
long with preliminaries.
"Please, please, these things take time; lawyer working on papers for
license&;#8230;" Atrovsky was interrupted by the sudden thump of the
little visitor's booted feet on his desk. Grabbing Ivan's tie he
screamed "How long have I known you and you're giving me this crap!! I
ought a put one of my guys in your girlfriend's luggage when you're not
looking next time you shack up with one of them!" fumed the compact man
as he seemed to dance back and forth on the desktop, deftly bypassing
large photos of Atrovsky's mistresses.
"Calm down, Joey. None of this is necessary!"
Climbing down from this relative Everest, he replied "You promised me
first exclusive rights to this thing for North America; every week for
the last three months its been delays; what, did Vegas get to you, that
it?" Whined the half-man.
"Don't be crazy, they will love it if you walk in with your new
billions; no, like I told you, technical legal problems, being worked
out as we&;#8230; scream" Ivan smiled.
"Alright, but we want complete demonstrations, got it?" Diminutov was
adamantine and Ivan knew not to say no, this guy had a reputation in
the old Soviet days.
"Deal; will contact you later this week when we are ready, ok?"
Ivan realized he couldn't see his guest any more. "Joey, where the hell
are you?"
Ivan felt a metallic object poking him in the ass; Joey was under his
chair. Then, the poking stopped.
The office door slammed; as Ivan got up to look around, a little man he
hadn't even seen plopped into his chair, trying to put up his boots on
the desk without success, and then standing on the desk. "Just see that
you do as you said, Atrovsky" he squealed, jumping onto the floor and
exiting out the door before Ivan could answer him.

Agent Kitsch was pacing in their smallish office when the report came
in.
Turning to the bearer of the startling tidings, he addressed his junior
colleagues. "What the fuck is this?"
"Sir, it seems that the Russians have been after Diminutov for some
time. They have reason to believe that he intends to bankrupt every
lottery system in the world once he gets his hands on what he thinks is
twenty second century gear that doesn't exist" was the reply from Agent
Dowdy. "According to their field operatives they're using some
unsuspecting IP lawyer to keep it real, for now" she added.
"Why the hell would be have believed them about this technology in the
first place, he's not stupid?" Was the question, wasn't it? "Best we
can tell, these two go back a long way, got Dimi's family out of the
gulag and forced labor camps for, well, undesirables" augmented Agent
Swanson. "Add to that his all-consuming hard-on for Hollywood and the
West and you get suspension of disbelief."
"So what we have to do is go along with some sting-like setups like
he's actually succeeding, right?"
"That's the part I don't like; what if these Russians are in on it and
freelancing?" offered Agent Dowdy.
"No problemo; we see to it that they get paid in counterfeit or marked
currency!" emphasized Kitsch.
"No go, boss" Dowdy opined; "The Russians re-invented ersatz currency
techniques, it won't fly" was her closer.
"Got entrapment written all over it" Swanson piled on.
"Look, clear it through counsel if it makes ya happy; all I know is
nobody walks away from this wrap, Russians or midgets, got it?" Kitsch
stormed out of their neat freak office, reflecting upon how it
wasn't like a real cop's office should be, like in the old days, using
their door to make his nonverbal exclamatory observation.

Tuesday, comeback day. Claw was two blocks from the office, running a
little early for a change; better call the office, just to be safe,
have everything set to go, his brain prompted when it countermanded
that instruction based on a fairly new neural databank labeled "Lay off
secretarial staff, immediately", dated last week. No biggie, the dox
were all on diskette from countless prior deals, his wet ware consoled
from yet another set of neurons in the clich? department: "Nothing new
under the sun, boy chick." While the boy chick add-on did seem to be of
hackneyed origin, it gave him momentary pause, quickly overcome by both
his logic net-----it was associational, that's all, 'Ivan, remember,
your new ticket to the Bigs?'------And the blinking red light on the
phone he was about to use to call the staff he no longer had. 'Get a
real charger' was the prevailing command and he found himself at the
gadgetorium run by the oldster he sometimes popped in on to get the
real scoop about the tech world's next hit/flop. The guy had warned him
about that last deal and Claw winced at the thought, emanating from the
anxiety section of his 'necktop', of one more 'told you so.' Glancing
at his now ridiculously expensive watch, he noticed that it, too,
needed power, as in new battery: Jesus H!
"Sorry my friend, but nobody's allowed behind the curtain----insurance,
get it?" The wizened old-timer gushed, without any specific tone of
alarm. "Here, I'll bring it out for you; this one, right?" he pointed
to a like-new recharger mate for the phone in Claw's hand.
"Good choice, very compact, light" was the technical blurb applicable
to the cellular phone from the front room Claw had seemed to have
appropriated. The old man knew how to handle such delicate situations,
especially when the potential lifter was so well dressed.
"Were you planning on me billing you, Prince Charles?" He quipped only
hinting at condescension.
"I do need a new one, one that works" Claw managed this pitiful
restatement of the obvious, at least to him, from the 'what's going on,
anyway' confused emotion bundle, hosted by what was really a second
rate bunch of neurons----he needed new ones, ones that worked, his
higher brain functions conspiringly mused.
"Need, shmeed," chortled the old one; "it's all about 'want' today, you
hear me?" the old master now waxed shamanic.
"What do you truly 'need', eh---------your brain, the courage to trust
in it, but not completely, no: it's the 'heart' that sees you through,
and you won't find that in here, yes?" posited the gizmo guru.
"You know what you need, you need to hurry up and decide what you need,
because I'm forced to close early today-----going ballooning today with
my cockamamie nephew, in the desert, yet!" This breakout news seemed to
have not registered with Claw at all, his skullstuff oscillating
randomly between dazed and seriously confused.
"Look, you appear to be a nice fellow, what with your designer suit and
tasteful watch------did you know it had stopped------tell you what,
have a cup of coffee, on me and stop and smell some roses in the park
across the street"; the coffee was strong, Turkish style, maybe, his
yuppie know-it-all zero sum center observed. It seemed to bring him
back to the inner solar system enough to begin processing the wisdom
offerings of the old fellow who reminded him of someone from his
childhood that his now overloaded CPU had put on the 'later' pile of
afterthoughts.
"There's a very comfortable bench over there and it's a lovely day; at
least you don't incline to vertigo, eh, just think of me in that
mishugina basket, going higher and higher; but, he is my only boy
chick"; this reference helped, but Claw no longer knew why.
As Claw made for the door and the bench he had been advised to visit,
the now disembodied old man's comforting voice bade him farewell from
the back room behind the sheer: "Remember, you already have what you
really need: stop thinking with that overrated brain-----don't get me
wrong, still better than all these machines------use your heart, it has
its own voice, but you can't hear it unless that brain is quiet, it
will help you find the courage to live a little, like me, in that crazy
balloon!" and he was gone.

On the long old-fashioned bench was an older gent with a kind face,
feeding the birds. Claw seemed enfolded by a warm breeze as he slowly
lowered his weary load at the other end.
"What's a young feller like you doing here in the middle of the work
day-----leaving it to the other rats, are ya?" the kindly Clarence-like
person at the opposite end submitted for Claw's approval.
"Not really sure and, well, my watch has stopped, need a new
batt&;#8230;." Claw's eyes, for the first time, were absorbing the
large old-fashioned signage atop the doorway of the shop he had just
exited.
"What line of work you in that's making you so sad?" was the
$64,000 dollar question, now severely adjusted for inflation to the
tune of several digits left of the decimal.
"Uh, lawyer, actually&;#8230;and you?" was Claw's desultory verbal
reflex, now reduced to something only slightly superior to the
preverbal gruntings of his long ago sapiens sapiens ancestors.
"Me, I'm obsolete and glad of it; no sir, don't need me anymore" the
old gent beamed.
"Why?" Claw uttered, sounding more like his distant forbears than
ever.
"Well, ya see my line was moving houses-----that's right, jacked those
suckers up with hydraulic lifts, hand-cranked, hard work that, in my
day, though it gave me strong hands for opening jars and such; had to
give it up when-----and it really wasn't our fault, no siree-----Act a
God, insurance people called it, strong wind came up outta nowhere,
tossed that house up in the air pritnear 30 foot or so. Just as well
though, nobody needs that service no more, just tear the old things
down, don't you know."
'Ozzie's Pawn, Loan &; Emerald Dealers' read the deep green sign he
now wondered how he had not noticed on his billion trips down this
street.
"Where'd you say you were in business?" came the query from the depths
of his right brain, childhood mystery bureau.
"Didn't------you alright, look a bit pale-------guess the sunshine'll
do you some good, eh------Manhattan&;#8230;Manhattan, Kansas. Yeah,
I like it alright out here, was real nice when I came out here, desert
air, no more though; guess there's no place like home."
Claw's eyes fell upon his feet, which he found in command of his
slavish shoes clicking together, at the heels, in a reflexive
dislodging of general detritus apparently garnered somewhere on the
yellowing bricked park path.. As he faced Eastward, his heart, now
audible, told him all would be well, even or, especially, without
Russian clients.