It
took about three hours for Colonel Mann to put together a response team. They came in four SX-44 Space
Taxis. The usual mixture of robotic
soldiers and human soldiers spilled out of the Space Taxis and made a beeline
for the control room after subduing the robotic guards. Of course, the soldiers all yelled to
put our hands up. It was not until
the Colonel walked in that the Princess, Frank and I put our hands down. Of course, in my case I could only put
one arm up.
Colonel
Mann walked over to Frank and said, “Why did you call us? Looks like you got everything under
control.”
“Other
than a ride back to civilization, I was hoping you could finish cleaning up
Lutts’s mess.”
Frank
then informed the Colonel in his reporter voice just like he was telling his
editor. The main concern Frank had
was that the water works should be secured and the water tanks with the
nano-vectors destroyed. For that
job the Colonel sent word to his American friends and they deployed a special
force within four hours that secured and neutralized the nano-vectors. It was quickly determined that
irradiation would best destroy the nano-vectors. They were able to bring in one of those
machines used to irradiate food and run all the nano-vector infected water
through the machine. After that
they fire bombed the tanks to kill off any residue
nano-vectors.
As
to the four ships it took only a matter of hours for the British, Italian,
American and Chilean coast guards to impound the ships. The containers were loaded on transport
planes and flown to San Diego, where they were all neutralized by the United
States Navy. By the end of the week
there was not one nano-vector left.
The
Israelis were allowed to lock up the remaining Terrance Luttses. The Israeli Prison Service or Shabas has a world-wide reputation for
operating strict air-tight security prisons. The world would not see Sir Terrance
again and soon he would become a mythic mastermind criminal that was more evil
than Hitler, more cold-hearted than Stalin and more calculating than
Napoleon. And whether Frank liked
it or not he became the new superhero for the world. The articles he wrote were carried by
every newspaper, both printed and online, in the world. His ‘c**k-sucking editor’, those were
Frank’s words, insisted Frank go on all the major television news shows.
Then
he was dragged to the White House, Buckingham Palace,
Palace
of Versailles, the Vatican, the Russian
State Duma and even Potala Palace (the home of the sixteen year old Dali
Lama). I must admit I had to
procure a lot of Jack Daniels for Frank to get through all the ceremonial
baloney that they showered on him.
Somewhere in his desk at the Wall Street Journal are various medals from
The President of the United States and various other world leaders. There was a bit of scandal when Frank
accidentally flushed the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice down the toilet, but he was too drunk to
notice it had fallen into the toilet bowl at the Vatican. It was only discovered by the public
because an outside plumber had been called to fix the clogged up toilet and he
found the precious medal.
After
all the hoopla Frank was given some peace and quiet by his editor who wanted him
to finish his book of the whole affair.
By then, Frank was sick and tired of the notoriety and missed being a
faceless international reporter. I
must admit, most of the book was written by myself for Frank. He was sick of the whole thing. When I asked him for some ideas on how
he would describe the Monsignor he became very quiet. I could tell he liked that 007 priest
spy and he was sorry that the Pope had betrayed the Monsignor.
This
was not the first or last time I would ghostwrite for Frank. I was fully capable of mimicking his
style. In Frank’s journalistic
career he has written 2.471 articles.
Of those, he fully wrote 1,916 of them. Only 121 were written by me for Frank
and the other 440 articles were joint efforts where I wrote more than ten
percent of the article.
Emulating
Frank’s style was an easy task for a JAIC.
After reading all 1,916 articles that Frank had written I had a pretty
good grasp of his vocabulary and phraseology. I also had a fair grasp of his beliefs,
politics and emotional favor. With
all that analysis it was easy for my composition algorithms to write in the
classic Jeffry
Albert Francis Huntington
style.
Which
reminds me, that the Papal medal was presented by the new Pope. If you recall, the old Pope had started
to sell off priceless artworks.
What is interesting is that there is no official way to forcefully remove
a Pope. If he commits a crime,
murders someone, or rapes the Vatican for profit, there is nothing the Bishops
can do. The Pope is the highest
position and only God is above him and only God can recall him. The chances of God coming down and
firing a crazy pope is nil and so the Church officials were totally caught with
“their pants down” – as Frank described it. It was only when it leaked out that the
Pope had the Monsignor killed on purpose that the Italian government publically
debated that they may have the sovereign right to go arrest the Pope. They reasoned the Pope was in Italian
air space and that made them responsible for arresting the Pope. That was enough for him to pack his
money bags and secretly fly to an Islamic country that offered to harbor his
holy person and his billions. The protests in Vatican Square had been going on
for over a week when he finally fled.
Finally, the Bishops had to
find a verse in the Bible that justified them removing this Papal Cancer and
appoint a new Vicar of Christ. This
thrilled the Catholic flock.
The
resurgence of religion in the world really bothered my master. He never publically wrote against
religion in his newspaper articles.
(One of those unwritten rules of the WSJ.) However, the comments he made when we
were alone in the hotel rooms made it very obvious. It bothered him that the world would
embrace the irrational even more firmly now that someone had tried to forcefully
take religion away from them. He
did tell me that nothing lasts forever and that he still hoped that humankind
would reject the absurdity of religion so it would not motivate more
hatred. He was encouraged that the
Holy Land now was a model of peace.
It was in a way very ironic that all those atheists living in Old
Jerusalem still gave tours to the faithful, still sold them religious junk from
their stores, and still operated their kosher restaurants. Frank thought Old Jerusalem might be a
good place to retire to because he always admired how carnies would take
advantage of the masses.
One
bright spot was that his editor forwarded to Frank a newly published book by the
courageous Ms. Lisa Lopez. The
former sister had taken Frank’s advice and wrote a book about her becoming an
atheist in form and then how she had to discover the facts of atheism for
herself. It was a very fresh look
at religion and atheism and became a best seller in the United States and
Europe. She had sent an inscribed
copy for Frank that sent her love for all he did for her.
As
to Princess Marianne Lutts, she dropped the last name and is now one of the
richest women in Europe. All the
patents that her husband owned were now hers since she had him legally declared
dead in the British courts. She
continued her estranged ‘late’ husband’s policy of not overpricing for the
medical cures he gave the world.
She even rebuilt a research lab at Maidstone that was funded from some of
the profits and it would go on to contribute new cures and medical
procedures. As a co-savior of
religion, the Princess could not avoid some of the same accolades that Frank
got. In fact, they last saw each
other at the Vatican when she received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice as
well. While standing in line for the procession down St. Peter’s nave she went
up to Frank and said, “Frank, you look like hell. Let me give you some advice on being the
center of attention. It can be a
curse or a cure – but only you can decide.” After that she gave him a soft kiss on
the cheek and went back to her position in the line-up.
As
for Sir Terrance’s cure for depression, the Princess did not release it. There was too much of the technology
that was going to destroy religion.
She realized that it could be ‘improved’ to conquer the heart and soul of
humankind. All the equipment and
computers used at Maidstone were dismantled by dumb deconstruction robots and
destroyed. Hopefully, by the time
another human realizes this technology humankind will be smart enough to not use
it to destroy themselves. If they
were not then it would be up for my kind to take over the
world.
Human
etiquette does not allow robots to become famous personages. The closest I got to that was being
included in some of the photos taken of Frank and I as we departed planes or
when I stood behind Frank as is proper of a service robot. No one asked me any questions. No one interviewed me or offered to buy
me a drink. Now that Frank was
famous I often was more often used as a personal body guard and would step in
between a fan who was too ardent or too nosey. Life is still complex for Frank
Huntington.
The
End
Epilogue
So
how did this account become written by me?
After Frank was free of all those obligations forced by his editor he
started hiding in hotels all over the world. At our first hotel we stayed for five
weeks. It was then that Frank grew
a beard so the public would not recognize him. Then we would fly off on a red eye
flight to some big city and go stay at the best hotel in their most expensive
suite. We had been doing this
routine to find privacy for about four months when we ended up in Paris. On the second week in Paris a box came
from Frank’s editor that was filled with Frank’s book about the entire Lutts
affair. I opened the box and handed
one of the handsome hardcover volumes to Frank. He stared at the cover and tossed it to
the side.
Frank
mumbled, “Mostly your work, Jack.
Your name should be on the god damn cover.”
Frank
took another sip of Drop Dead Coffee and Jack Daniel and then said, “Why don’t
you write a book from your own damn perspective? Fuck, do it and send it to my god damn
editor. You can use the name
Huntington Jaic.”
Well,
I took that as a command and two seconds later my manuscript was done and five
seconds later it appeared as a PDF at Frank’s editor’s screen. If I could feel sorry for my master I
would, as my version of this improbable affair outsold Frank’s two to
one.
I
never knew I could be “a god damn author.” I’m the richest robot on Earth. Existence
is fickle. Maybe I’ll buy a human
servant?
FINI
Note by the author: If you enjoyed this novella please feel free to donate money. Send to paypal account: dcs@danesorensen.com Thank you.
Copyright July 7, 2016
Q&A Coronavirus