Fausts Terrible NanoWriMo thing

[Faust]

Firstly, this is not official. Secondly there is no word goal. The goal is to get writing consistently for the month, and get it out into the public.

The idea, though probably going to be loosely applied is a Captain Nemo story faintly applied through a filter of Ayn Rand. I mean that in a comedic way as opposed to literally because if you did I'm fairly certain you just get bioshock.

Gentle criticism for a fragile heart is appreciated.

The courtroom twinkled with the with flashes smartphones, every face pale and aglow from screens, soft hands tapping out whispers that disappear into the world beyond. Every TV screen and stream was tuned to the court case of the unknown man who had robbed the nuclear plant, causing untold damages, and upheaval at the failure of security to prevent him.

He was the terrorist, the mad man by design, the most evil man of his generation though you wouldn't know it to look at him in is saggy woollen jumper and his bushy grey eyebrows protruding off his chubby smiling face.

He had been captured a million times, in grainy security camera footage at first, and then a million high resolution social media shots. He had been dissected, analysed by scholars, political theorists, psychologists and all experts in the field.
He had been pushed, shared, blogged and talked about on over six million feeds, he was trending all the news sites and his hash tag had not yet been toppled even to the pop finals of the Meat factor. But the Squall rang out in union in their message of him. He was a TERRORIST. He had WMDS. He was a THREAT.

The judge sized him up and down, barely masking contempt before he composed himself and addressed the defendant.

"Your lawyer has informed me that you are to plead guilty to the crimes presented. Is this correct?"

"No your honour"

"I have a confession before me, presented by your lawyer:

"On the night of August 23rd, I and four others attempted to breach the Brockway nuclear enrichment facility with the intention of taking materials that could be used in the manufacture of weapons that could cause damage on a colossal scale. Had there not been a malfunction at the plant at the time that drew the attention of security we would have succeeded in this attempt"

I notice it's not signed... are these not your words?"

He rises, and smiles a kindly face upon the judge.

They are mine... more or less. But I am not pleading guilty, for no crime was committed. The plant had an over abundance of enriched uranium and I required some. And though the statement is factually correct, I suppose this could be used to create weapons, that was not my intent.
The malfunction as you called it was a catastrophic meltdown which only coincidentally occurred during our visit. Had I not tarried a while to relieve the failing and poorly maintained system, no one would have been aware of my presence. I was in the process of leaving when you shot and killed my companions. Furthermore-"

He is cut off by the gas canister rolling beneath his feet out into the centre of the court room. It detonates, flooding the room in dark plumes of smoke that sear the eyes and send bodies writhing in the stalls, he does his best to cover his face but it is no good.

She steps up from her seat, Black and white high heels clicking on the stone floor. Her antiquated wide brim hat holds a platinum gas filter veil to her head,.
She gently walks up behind him, stepping over bodies as she goes. She pulls off a red leather glove with her teeth and fumbles in a large handbag. Pulling out a body harness, she snaps it into place around the old mans arms, stomach and legs with heavy metal clips. He is fighting to breath, she hands him a tissue. His feet are bound in chains which she uses to drag him to out into the open courtroom floor.
Metal spikes protrude through the wall, darting past her closer then she would have liked They clatter to the floor and split four ways to form anchors. There are drawn back, and there is an agonised grinding as the wall is ripped away. A black helicopter hovers some thirty feet outside the building. Police are arriving, there isn't much time. She slips a steel cord onto the old mans back and he hurtles out of the hole into the air.

By now the smoke has started to clear. A face in the crowd valiantly holds up his camera phone, She smiles for her press and places a foot onto a trailing anchor, ascending out of the court and out of sight.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Good for you, for doing this!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wooo!

Liking it so far.

[Placid Dingo]

Both easy to read, and easy to want to read. Enjoyed.

I would have liked to hear some more verbal sparring between the man and the judge. You seemed to be in a hurry to reach the action but the scene was already strong and could have gone on for longer without losing traction.

The other thing that everyone (myself included) does is mix tense, whih you've done too, going from past to present in the courtroom.

But the little that's there is punchy and fun, and make you want to continue.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Both easy to read, and easy to want to read. Enjoyed.

I would have liked to hear some more verbal sparring between the man and the judge. You seemed to be in a hurry to reach the action but the scene was already strong and could have gone on for longer without losing traction.

The other thing that everyone (myself included) does is mix tense, whih you've done too, going from past to present in the courtroom.

But the little that's there is punchy and fun, and make you want to continue.

Story first, polish second.

[Placid Dingo]

Both easy to read, and easy to want to read. Enjoyed.

I would have liked to hear some more verbal sparring between the man and the judge. You seemed to be in a hurry to reach the action but the scene was already strong and could have gone on for longer without losing traction.

The other thing that everyone (myself included) does is mix tense, whih you've done too, going from past to present in the courtroom.

But the little that's there is punchy and fun, and make you want to continue.

Story first, polish second.

Yep.
Faust requested (gentle) criticism, which I know is really challenging to get so I make an effort to give it when requested. But I definately agree that as far as perfecting prose, that's all final stuff.

[Faust]

That was gentle enough thank you Dingo. It is going to be choppy, the only editing I did on it was to fix obvious spelling errors and duplications of words. I'll probably post each piece and polish later as Roger said after a few hours have elapsed and I can look at it with fresh eyes.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That was gentle enough thank you Dingo. It is going to be choppy, the only editing I did on it was to fix obvious spelling errors and duplications of words. I'll probably post each piece and polish later as Roger said after a few hours have elapsed and I can look at it with fresh eyes.

Actually, the chapter needs a little more meat on the bone.  But that's detail.  Worry about the plot first.

[Faust]

More meat will probably manifest as the puerile meanderings of a hack, I am really just doing this so that I am actually writing anything. With that in mind I'll try put interesting concepts and develop things further than just aiming to write drop into here.

Continued.. In which we are introduce to an ageing detective with a dark past as a rock and roll sensation.

Detective Keith Hudder walked as slowly as he could towards the meeting room at the end of the hall. The dreary laboratory's he passed we're slipshod and dreary. Jewel encrusted robotic calavera shouted out prophecy of doom at overworked interns, picket lines of white lab mice played the dance of an  inevitable outcome, worsening conditions and cheese fattened union reps taking backhanders.

He hadn't been selected for this job because he singlehandedly caught the three most terrible serial killers of the last decade, he was here because of his old life, the one of women and parties, of music and money, of little round mirrors with fine white lines.
In short the life he had wanted to get away from, but there's not an awful lot of options open to someone in his position. He had fucked up. Badly, repeatedly. You stop one serial killer, maybe people will still talk to you in the precinct. You do it three times, no one on the force is going to look at you.

You make the papers or cause a jump in the statistics and your career is over. The press start expecting you to solve things, people start to question if murder really is part of the day to day life, suddenly funding gets moved around, people are forced to work harder, other people end up out of the job or transferred to other departments.

He knew from the look of this place that his career was indeed over, it may have been for some time but up until this point had been costing on the tide. Whatever this job was it would bring it to an uneventful halt. He wasn't expecting anything good to come of it.

If this was a charity case it would have been something nice and simple, after the second serial killer he'd begged and been given what should have been a jealous husband murder/suicide, nice simple routine and low key, until two more showed up that week. A rooftop shootout later and he'd cracked another big one. They didn't wan't him for charity, this was for the weird.

"Good evening detective."

Some suit sat staring unblinking at stacks of notes on the table before him. He didn't stand up, he didn't shake Hudders hand, he barely registered that another person was in the room with him. His suit was black, silk lined, No logo, no recognisable department.

Hudder dragged out a plastic chair and sat.

"What's this all about?" He asked.

"We hear you are at a bit of a loose end with your affairs. There's been a lot of talk about you, according to the media you are some kind of hero, last year you you brought in the calendar girl cannibal, this year Vigil Auntie and the Pump Action Pimp. Surely you are in line for a promotion, no?"

"No available offices, or they won't have me. They said maybe when the station sergeant retires. So maybe in fifteen to twenty years"

"Is it true that no one will get in a car with you detective, that you are the widely regarded as the proverbial kiss of death for anyones career?"

"I reckon so."

"I know it's hard for someone like you, with your history. It would be such a shame to see you sitting at a desk waiting for retirement, what exactly is your problem, why do you have to rock the boat?"

"Maybe rocks all I know... It should be obvious enough, all a serial killer wants is the glamour the lifestyle, they all want to be famous. Its a sad fact of my condition, based on my previous life, they're drawn to me like moths to a flame, they all want to be caught by ageing rockstar."

He put his hands to his temples and sighed.

"I've never had to do any honest detective work, I've coasted by and these pricks fall into my lap."

"No, Not all of them"

"No?"

"How would you like an opportunity to redeem yourself, how would you like a job that will show people you can be a real detective"

"Bullshit. I saw this place as I was coming in, you're hiring me for the weird because you think that's all I can do. It will be the same all over again."

"Not this time. The people we want you to catch are very different to what you are used to."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you been following the news lately? Did you happen to see the courtroom exodus of the terrorist responsible for the Brockway disaster."

"I'm not going near that, are you crazy that's the most publicised case in the world, I'd be off the force before the papers with my face on it hit the stands. How am I supposed to do that quietly with my history. You know paparazzi from rolling stone still follow me around?"

The man behind the desk opened a battered laptop and started playing grainy surveillance footage of a helicopter weaving through the city.

"I've seen this movie. It's on TV a lot."

"Yes but take a closer look. There's something you might have missed"

We're watching from an eagle eye view of a police helicopter. It bobs past billboard advertisements that flicker and switch to public alerts, warning passers to keep calm and be vigilant for criminal activity. Ten second timers roll in the corners before restoring the advertisments, lest the angry gods of marketing turn their wrath towards the security services.

A woman in a red dress with an overly big hat is hanging from a chain, holding a plump little man by his belt. The chain wavers and undulates as their escape vehicle swings around corners to avoid the fire of the police. Carefully she wraps her legs around the chain and rummages with her free hand in an overly large hand bag. She pulls the pin of a grenade, swings the chain in close and throws, the screen goes white for moment.

The burning wreckage of the police chopper falls.

The footage cuts, seen from some surveillance footage on a rooftop is the chopper disappearing out over the sea.

"What am I supposed to be seeing here?"

The man in the suit winds the film back frame by frame. For just one moment we see a glimpse, From the woman's bag hang the police choppers pilot and sniper, looks of abject terror quite plainly visible though the video quality is poor.

"Hostages?"

"We don't think so. There have been no demands, it's not public knowledge that the two survived the crash."

"Then I don't understand."

"The problem here is that no one was killed detective Hudder. A courtroom is ripped open in a crowded city is by an unknown miscreant in an unmarked helicopter, ferrying fugatives who we have been unable to locate, on a wild chase, taking heavy fire from a police helicopter and there was not one casualty. Not in this escape and not in the reactor incident."

"That sounds like a stroke of luck, what are you playing at?"

"The man in question was in line to be our next big villain de jour. We would not have allowed him to make it to prison. He would have been silently shot and buried and an escape would have been publicised, and every few years, should something go wrong, we have a donkey to pin the tail on."

"I don't like where this is going."

"We don't advertise new villains unless they have been tested with the populace, and because sometimes we can make good use of them at a later point. We were grooming his image and now it's out of our hands.

Over the last sixty years every publicised terrorist organisation has in part been at least partly controlled by our people. There is no stopping terrorism detective. Every powerful nation that has existed has enemies, we realised that, we've come to terms with it.

If you can't stop your enemies what can you do? There is a simple answer my friend, you select their targets for them, push dogma that is complementary to your dogma."

"An inside job?"

"There's no such thing as inside job unless you count Thatcher and the IRA thing, using them as wind up toys for bombing her enemies, but you can steer what could otherwise be a problem in a certain direction, sometimes even use it to your advantage.

One week ten thousand people die in a chemical attack and its the end of your administration, but push it one week later, or change the location, or change it to a biological weapon, and the public embraces you as their champion."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because we don't know anything about these people and that scares the shit out of us. There is a process to these things, You can't control any process you can't actively measure. These things take a pattern;
A group forms, they have a loose ideal, we observe, they attack, we infiltrate, we steer, we develop or dismantle but either way they are a useful extension of our machine.

So we need to know why didn't they kill those two pigs? The public haven't figured it out yet but that's only a matter of time. We NEED to get them back in body bags or we are in incredible danger."

"Of what?"

"Of Pacifism! Of losing a useful garden variety terrorist cell and ending up with some kind of baffling ideology on our hands."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"You find them. As long as you are on the case people are going to be looking at you and not the case which gives us time."

"I don't think I can do this, I'm not your man."

"We have the tapes."

"What tapes?"

"A little recording you made twenty five years ago. You were in your prime back then, full of vigour."

"There's already a load of old sex tapes kicking around of me. Do what you want with it, I'm leaving."

"It's not a sex tape, It's four never released songs. You forget they even existed. If we release these into the wild you'll be back at the top of the charts for months. The force would drop you like a ton of bricks. And it will be messy."

He shuffled the files into a brown file and slid them across the desk.

"Think it over."

Detective Keith Hudder walked out the hall like a man who's balls caught in a vice.