The story below is a work in progress, designed to grow without end by appending new scenes as I craft them. My working title is Briar Pig. I may later break it into chapters shown on separate pages.
Because the story was getting long, I broke it into parts listed below. Note division into sections is somewhat arbitrary. However, part two comprises most of opening movement in Finch's part of the plot, wherein Wil and Zé see surprises. Part three resumes where part two ended, but starts with Wil's pig fable.
- part1 - Zé plays Jak 3; ...; Finch's magic trick
- part2 - Kip researches Finch; ...; Wil gets eyes behind
- part3 - Wil starts a Briar Pig fable; ...; (ongoing)
An opening piece of part1 still appears below. But all remaining parts of this page have moved to other pages. I can see the whole story getting four or five parts long before a break is necessary in a form structurally similar to a sequel. Everything before a sequel (after part five) amounts to an origin story. Parts of either part three or four might contain long sections of near fantasy as Zé learns the ropes, perhaps intercut with Wil's mission with the others in reality.
Z walked into Wil's place without knocking, heading for the living room where the PS2 was setup with Jak 3. As expected, Wil was writing in his faux cube, which really freaked out Ulf when he first saw it. Why would anyone come home from working in a cube farm, then go directly to another cube in his living room?
Z thought it was pretty funny. He and Wil had similar senses of humor. Now if only Wil would start calling him Z instead of Zé. But old habits are hard to lose, and Wil learned to say Zé or Zeta too often when they roomed years ago. Z was on a progressive abbreviation kick, but Wil didn't care beyond joking whitespace would be even shorter. Z called himself Z mainly in internal dialog. Maybe it was the same as 'I'. But cooler.
"Elvis has entered the building," Z said falling into the couch, because Wil hadn't looked up.
Wil clicked his tongue once in response. This was geek humor meaning a single bit of one. Wil did it sometimes to say "of course", or "duh", or "tell me something I didn't know" depending on context. When paired with a goofy look and a three stooges posture it meant soitenly. Wil had trouble engaging verbal circuits when writing or coding, apparently because he used the speaking part of his brain for something else when working.
Z loaded a game in hero mode then settled into killing marauders in the desert before starting hang time jumps off the dunes. Ulf and Eli weren't due for a while yet. Z wondered how different father and son could look from each other. Martin Sheen's sons Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez hardly looked like brothers at all, but of course they had different mothers. "Somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy," Z said to himself.
Wil snorted quietly.
As his vehicle slid out of control in the sand after a bad landing, Z imagined a new mission for Jak in the desert, involving an arabian princess and opulent tent furnishings. Except his sidekick—a talking camel with a witty tongue—just wouldn't shut up. The princess kept laughing, though. "You're the sidekick, Wil," Z said.
"No, you're the sidekick," Wil shot back. Apparently his speech center wasn't that busy after all—or this reply was pure reflex by now.
repo man «
Eli didn't look much like his father, but their voices were alike, so he couldn't be a changeling Zé concluded. He was also far more polite than Ulf, and only stared a bit too long when they met. "Portugese-Irish-Brazilian," Zé had finally answered Eli's unasked question.
"When's Koi giving a green light?" Ulf asked.
Zé shrugged. "Ask him yourself. If you want him to go faster, write some fiction. Give Koi more to go on."
Eli hadn't said much so far, but slowly his initial tense awareness of scrutiny faded away, as he casually examined junk around Wil's place. He seemed like a bright kid about 20 years old, with quite a long attention span. A twinkle appeared in Eli's eye every time Zé gave Ulf a little grief. Now a playful smile appeared.
"Yeah, dad," Eli jibed, "Get off your butt and write some fiction. And get a haircut while you're at it."
"Oh, I don't know," Ulf whined, "Maybe I'll apply myself after I take time off." This definitely had an edge, likely related to Ulf's complaint Eli left school recently to consider other options. Sounded like a stale fight.
No one said anything for a moment; the sound of Wil typing dominated the room. After initial introductions and chatting, Wil had asked if he could finish a few paragraphs before stopping. How could they say no? Zé decided to show them something funny to break the tension. So he cleared his throat and pitched his voice in imitation of someone else.
"Ever been to Utah?" Zé asked. Eli hesitated, and Wil broke in first, but continued typing.
"Ra-di-a-tion," Wil said carefully. "Yes, indeed."
"You hear the most outrageous lies about it," Zé prompted as if he really meant it. Ulf's eyebrows went up because this looked like a performance. Wil kept writing and never slackened typing.
"Pernicious nonsense," Wil continued. "Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year."
Eli laughed, interrupting to add: "They ought to have them, too." Zé smiled hugely when Eli recognized this bit, but Ulf was completely lost.
Eli put on a face and started to get into character. His idea of mad scientist was a bit campy. "When they canceled the project it almost did me in," Eli emoted.
Wil spun around in his aeron chair after saving a document with theatrical flourish. He looked happy, and the smile looked oddly out of place. Wil's normal look in his living room cube was gloomy.
"I forget the next part, though," Eli pleaded.
"'One day my mind was full to bursting'," lead Wil.
"The next day—nothing," Eli remembered. "Swept away." But he hammed his acting.
"What the hell is this?" demanded Ulf.
"It's Repo Man, dad," explained Eli.
"Didn't that come out before you were born?" wondered Ulf, feeling off balance.
"Duh, free movie channel," Eli zinged.
"'The more you drive, the less intelligent you are'," Ulf tried. "That one?"
"'Yeah," confirmed Zé. "At Youtube you can see the scene we just quoted about a minute into a clip."
"Who's the old guy in the Chevy Malibu again?" asked Eli. "Father of the neutron bomb?"
"J. Frank Parnell," Zé answered. "Otto finally catches his car after a great guitar lick by Iggy Pop in the sound track." Zé added, "You look a bit like Emilio Estevez."
Eli shook his head no, and Wil squinted. "Only slightly," Wil decided. "We all look geekier than film stars."
Interestingly, Eli started to look bored, apparently because adults had once again fallen into the habit of discussing appearance. Good for you, Wil thought. Best to ignore anything that smacks of flattery.
"Put it on a plate son, you'll enjoy it more," Wil suggested. This was a stupid remark by a parent in Repo Man when Otto ate directly from a can marked "Food" with a generic label. Wil wondered if Eli could relate.
Eli smiled grimly and his eyes flicked to Ulf.
"You look smarter than your pa, kid," Zé told Eli. "Is he slow at home too?"
"Hey, I'm standing right here," objected Ulf.
"What's his IQ?" Zé asked Wil, then grinned at Ulf.
Wil stood up and squared his feet to address Eli, who looked nervous. Wil pooched out his belly, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and spoke in a pompous rural drawl like a hill-billy sheriff. "Boy," Wil demanded, "What do you know about history?" Each vowel was a dipthong.
As luck had it, Eli was playing with a Sharpie pen before this started. Raising it now, he waggled it like a cigar and got a zany look in his eye, while bending slightly at the knees to get a limber stance. This gave him a couple seconds more to decide what to say, Wil could see.
"Well," Eli said from the side of his mouth, "my roomie in college was poly sci, and he taught me Karl Marx was the funniest of the Marx Brothers."
"About one fifty," Wil said turning to Zé.
"You're kidding," Ulf bleated.
"Your dad has no sense of humor at all, does he?" Zé asked Eli wonderingly.
"Not as far as I can tell," Eli admitted.
