Flirty Banter, Kisses and Death from all Sides

          With my previous excerpt posting from Noon: The Rise to Power being received so well, I decided to post another, also staring Solace and Ignatius.

“Did you miss me last night?” Solace asked as she stopped in the doorway of Ignatius Kennedy Toole’s office. She removed her coat and folded it across her arm as the morning sun peeked through the windows. Although their affair had been going on for several months, she still beamed every time she saw him.

Ignatius eyed her svelte figure packed perfectly in a lime green mini dress complete with white calf high platform boots. “You know, I can survive a single night without you,” he replied, looking up from his desk. “I’m a grown-up. And I understand you have other obligations and responsibilities. Besides, I do have a life of my own, friends, family, you know.”

“Oh, yeah! Like I believe that!” she said playfully as she walked in, came around to the back of his chair and scrambled his dark hair. “Seriously, if we broke up you would just pine away. Dissolve into jiggly protoplasm. That’s the way I see it.”

“Clearly no ego problem here,” Ignatius said with a grin as he leaned back and looked up. “I suppose you would expect me to climb to the roof and hurl myself off.”

She threw up her hands. “At the very least!”

“Yeah, I can see the headlines,” he said, sitting up and holding out his arms as if reading an old time newspaper. “Handsome, brilliant and popular Lord Mountbatten—not his real name—for reasons we cannot possibly fathom, threw himself from the top of the Hudson Towers building this morning after being dumped by co-worker Tish Something-or-other— not her real name either.

“When asked, Ms. Something-or-other, a blond, statuesque, self-centered, incredible piece of ass, replied, “’Well it is all about me, isn’t it? Me, me, me, me, me!’”

She pressed her hand dramatically to her chest. “Finally… A man who truly understands women!” she said as she bent down and kissed him

Over the next ten minutes, the campaign offices of Noon for Governor filled with its regular employees and volunteers. Their numbers had dwindled somewhat following the recent assaults against campaign personnel, the three bombing attempts and that scare with the building’s fuel cells. But the majority stayed, finding the job challenging, exciting and dangerous. It was a situation twenty-somethings had a hard time refusing.

“Well,” Solace said as she stood. “Might as well head to my office.” As she passed the window she stopped and gazed outside. “Such a beautiful day!”

“Want to get a cup of coffee?” he asked.

Solace grinned. “Forgotten what happened the last time?”

He reached into his desk and pulled out a bag of gourmet dark roast. “God helps those who help themselves,” he replied. As he was about to lock his computer he felt a buzz from his wristscreen. When he casually glanced down at it, his heart nearly fell out of his chest. Instead of the time, the LCD screen featured a flaming skull. And on the skull’s forehead appeared the number 180. As the jaw of the flaming skull began to move, a text message formed at the bottom of the screen.

Greetings, Black Knight! My name is Horrorscope. Remember it. It is the name of the man who is going to kill you.

A moment later it began counting down.

179…178…177…

Ignatius paled. “Someone cracked my code!” He frantically unbuckled and removed the wristscreen. “I don’t know how but…He flipped open the tab and connected it to his computer. The screen immediately filled. “It’s a blocking code! All our communication devices are corrupted.”

He turned the screen to Solace. Her face took on a cold, calculating, seriousness he had never seen before. She ran to the nearest window. “They wouldn’t take out our communication network unless they were planning an attack,” she said. She pulled up the blind. A metallic glint from the roof of the building across the street caught her eye.

As she looked closer, she noticed a man in black opening a large suitcase. The steel hinge had caught the sun’s reflection.

She began waving frantically. “C’mere quick!” she shouted.

Ignatius raced over and saw the man quickly and with great precision, assemble what appeared to be a rocket launcher.

“Holy shit!” Ignatius shouted, now realizing what the descending numbers and Horrorscope’s text meant.

He took off for the other side of the office. “Maybe if we get the people to the east end staircase we could…” Ignatius stopped when he saw another assassin on top of the building across the street.

“Damn it!” Ignatius yelled, pressing his fingers to his head. “Probably got guys coming at us from every angle.”

Solace pulled the lever on the fire alarm. The red emergency lights and exit arrows began to flash.

As her fellow co-workers raced to the exits and rushed down the stairs, Solace and Ignatius found themselves at the end of a long line with little chance of getting out before the men in black blew away half the building.

She grabbed Ignatius’s hand and checked his wristscreen. “Shit!” she said, then pulled until they were both running toward the southern portion of the building.

As they turned the corner they saw the two freight elevators. Fortunately one was already at their floor. Solace ran over, pressed the button and dove in.

“C’mon, hurry!” she shouted pressing the lobby button.

Ignatius stopped at door’s edge. “Wait. You’re never supposed to get in an elevator during an emergency. Everybody knows that. We have to get to a staircase.” He reached for her hand.

“We’ll never get down the stairs in time!” She grabbed his arm and yanked him in.

The door quickly closed and the elevator raced down the shaft.

She looked up at the floor indicator. “Just another few seconds or so and we’ll…”

Ignatius wasn’t paying attention. He was looking at his wristscreen.

 3…2…1

  

Oooooooooo, scary, huh? What will happen to our buddies, Ignatius and Solace? Well, I won’t give it away but, you can download the entire 355 page novel for only $2.99 and it comes with a money back guarantee! DRM free so it can be downloaded to any electronic reading device. See more here:

http://www.amazon.com/NOON-The-Rise-Power-ebook/dp/B004EBTGZG/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345667073&sr=1-3&keywords=Zackary+Richards

Sex-talk, Politics and the Hulking Imbecile.

 Here is a short excerpt from Noon: The Rise to Power. In this scene, Ignatius and Solace go out for coffee to get acquainted. Because of wire tapping attempts at campaign headquarters, Noon’s staff uses code names when in public or on the phone to avoid being tracked and targeted by PTB thugs.

Solace took her first sip. “Ahhh,” she sighed as she placed her cup on the table of the local Starbucks. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had iced coffee. Thanks for inviting me. I needed a break. I’ve been working nearly around the clock the last four days.”

Ignatius looked up as he savored his first sip. “Really? Since I hadn’t seen you around, I thought maybe you took another job.”

Solace shook her head. “No. One of our friends sustained some injuries and I had to help with his recovery.”

Remembering what the I-Man said about her specialty, he nodded. “Lately, campaign headquarters has become a madhouse, I had to get out or go nuts. So thanks right back at you for taking me up on my offer.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile. She cleared her throat. “Well, this is awkward.” She paused, raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. “I know what they call you but I don’t know your real name and… well…” she let the question die there. They both knew the reason.

Ignatius returned the smile. “Yeah, well, let me think.” He looked away for a moment then said, “Okay, tell you what. Call me what I’m known by out there on the mean streets.” He tilted his head toward the open door and the sidewalk.

“And what’s that?” she asked, taking another sip.

“Lord Mountbatten.”

Solace nearly spit out her coffee. She threw her head back and laughed.

Ignatius grinned. “Now how about you. What do I call you?”

“Well, since I do not come from royalty, nor do I have a street name,” she said reaching for a sugar packet, “I’ll have to make up something. How about Tish? I once had a friend with that name.”

Ignatius gave a quick nod. “Okay then, from now on, Tish, it is.”

She grinned, poured the sugar into her coffee and stirred. “Lord Mountbatten, huh? Obviously you are a person of great importance.”

He put his index finger to his lips. “Please, as a professional campaign lackey,” he said gesturing to his campaign button, which read:

Vote for Noon.

You know why.

“I have a lot of responsibility. So, if you need your mail sent to the wrong address or your trash emptied, you need look no further.”

Smiling, she said. “When they speak of this, and only heaven knows why they would, let it be said, this was…”

Before she could finish, a huge man with massive hands and a jagged scar across the length of his forehead stepped over to their table. Wearing dark blue coveralls that reeked of oil and propane, he stood in front of Ignatius and pointed his meaty finger at the campaign button. “That bastard Noon is going to ruin it for all of us!” he growled. The lower part of his face reminded Ignatius of a large mouth bass. “If he keeps leaning on the corporations, we’re all going to be out of a job!” He reached down, yanked the button off and flung it out the open door and into the street.

Ignatius was thunderstruck. “Why you sonavabitch!” he bellowed as he rose from his chair. Before he could get to his feet, however, the stranger shoved him back into it.

He pressed his hand down against Ignatius’s shoulder, holding him in position. He leaned down and spoke in a low conspiratorial tone. “Next time I catch you wearing a ‘Vote for Noon’ button, little man, it’ll be your head I rip off and toss into the street. You got me?” With that he shoved Ignatius’s chair—with him in it—backward to the floor and then up-ended the table, which dropped on Ignatius’s chest. The iced coffees took to the air and spilled, for the most part, on Solace.

Gasping, off balance and unable to get up, Ignatius tapped his earpiece and the rectangular photographic lens snapped into position in front of his right eye. As his assailant glared down at him, Ignatius snapped his picture. Another tap of the button and the photo was e-mailed to his computer in the lab.

“Hey, tough guy!” Ignatius called out. “You think your life sucks now? Just wait a couple of hours and it’ll be a living hell. I promise!”

The man snarled, pushed his way through the onlookers and stormed out.

As Ignatius and Solace walked the streets of Manhattan on their way back to campaign headquarters, Ignatius brooded. “I can’t believe that guy. There I am, minding my own business…”

Solace took his arm, pulled him close and patted his chest to show support. “What was that famous old saying? Never discuss sex, religion or politics?”

“Oh! So, I’m supposed to hide the fact that I support Noon for governor?”

Solace turned toward him, knit her brows and shook an admonishing finger. “Now you look here, young man, I don’t ever want to hear any defeatist talk like that again! Why, you go out there and show the whole damn world who you want as governor. Have your ass proudly kicked; have your nose stoically flattened; have your nads punted into your fuselage damn it! And the next time some hulking imbecile with hands the size of cured hams approaches, steps on your feet and uses your head as a speed bag, you just go ahead and unleash the power hidden inside that 145-pound frame. Cause when you present me his head in your bowling ball bag well, let’s just say, that night, you’ll be in for some sweet, sweet lovin.”

He stopped and stared at her. “Okay, I’ve simply got to ask, did you just make up that entire soliloquy on the fly?”

“Oh, is that what they’re called?” Solace asked as she turned to check her reflection in the store window. “My parents, rest their souls, used to refer to them as …well, let’s say Tish’s raving lunacy.  Hmmm, soliloquy, huh? Well,” she added patting her hair. “I’m going to have to remember that.”

She looked up and saw they were back at 43rd Street and Madison Avenue. The Hudson Towers, was just across the street. “Well, we’re here. Fun times over, Mountbatten. Guess it’s back to work.”

Noon 2: The Resurgence is being released at the end of August.  Why not download the original, Noon: The Rise to Power now so you can be in on the fun when the sequel arrives. Only $2.99 and it comes with a money-back guarantee if you don’t like it. (Sorry, USA residents only) DRM free so it’s available to any electronic device. Click here for a look.

http://www.amazon.com/NOON-The-Rise-Power-ebook/dp/B004EBTGZG/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345472236&sr=1-3&keywords=zackary+richards

Peace.

Peace is like the weather. Everybody talks about it yet nobody does anything about it. Oh sure, there are those hippy goof-ball wanna-be’s, parading around with their ‘Give Peace a Chance’ T-Shirts and their ‘Make Love not War’ bumper stickers, but really, like War, what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!

If we truly want peace we have to get up off our lazy asses and fight for it.

Here’s how it’s done.

First we refuse to believe ANYTHING told to us by the media. Every television station, internet site, newspaper and magazine has their own personal agenda. They hire spin doctors, media campaign specialists and psychologists whose only job is to turn you around to their way of thinking. None of them give a damn about you or this country. Almost all are owned by international businessmen whose only loyalties are to their pocketbook. For example Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian who is presently under investigation for hacking into the peoples personal cell phones. His partner, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, is the nephew of the Saudi King.

On the other side, The New York Daily News is owned by Canadian born Mortimer Zuckerman, who has a long association with the Israeli lobby. My point is whether you are a conservative republican or liberal democrat, the media has no interest in providing you with accurate and verifiable information; their only goal is to convince you to support the candidates that can do the most for THEM.

How do we fix this? How do we achieve a government that supports the needs of its people? How do we get peace in our time? Simple.

We go to war.

To make a difference we need verify the accuracy of the information the media broadcasts. For example, during the last election a news story circulated that Sen. John McCain had said the U.S. should be in the Middle-East for a ‘hundred years’ if necessary.

That didn’t sound legit to me so I researched it. What he actually said was, “If necessary, the U.S. should have a military BASE in the Middle-East like we have in the countries of our other former enemies, Germany and Japan.

That’s quite a difference and purposefully skewed to turn voters against him.

Two recent examples: Romney’s “I like to fire people,” sound bite. Here’s what he actually said. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”

Isn’t quite what they were trying to get you to believe, is it? Same goes for President Obama’s recent “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” Again the words were taken out of context. In his speech the President said that successful business people got to where they are because somewhere along the road someone helped them.

And he’s absolutely right!

I own a small business www.aripublishing.com and it never would have succeeded if not for my investors, my IT and graphic arts person, my editors, my marketing people and most importantly my customers.

The point is, we succeed when we work together. So here’s what we do.

Again, verify any claim the media makes that seems unrealistic to you. All easily researched on Google, Bing, Yahoo, You tube etc.. And if you find they have left out an import section that intentionally misleads you. Post that information on your Facebook page and ask ‘Friends’ to share. Tweet to your followers. Then find out who that company’s advertisers are and post on their Facebook page or e-mail them that you will no longer purchase their product until they stop supporting an organization that intentionally misleads the American public. 

Any company getting 20,000 of those posts will take their business elsewhere. By driving business away from any company that misleads the public, accountability will be restored and that’s the first step in acquiring peace and avoiding such fiascos as George W’s costly and unnecessary invasion of Iraq.

Curious as to what would happen if self serving factions were able to take control of the state and federal governments? Find out by reading my political thriller Noon: The Rise to Power. Have a look here.

 http://www.amazon.com/Noon-Rise-Power-Zackary-Richards/dp/0578073358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344886612&sr=8-2&keywords=zackary+richards

Uncle Zack Tackles the Hard Issues

This morning my beloved daughter Turtledove kicked in my bedroom door and shouted, “Watch the kid; I’ve got to go to work!”

I wanted to protest, remind her that I too have a life but seeing that she was wearing her Homeland Security full body armor and had her hand hovering over her holstered Glock 9, I decided to thwart her obvious plan and remained silent.

Besides I always enjoy spending time with my imaginary grandson Bosco Obama the third. He’s such a curious young man and I just love it when he calls me ‘Gam’pa’.

As she was about to leave she turned and said, “And don’t fill his head with that loony-tune crap you told me when I was a kid. I had a hard time holding on to my femininity thanks to you!” she added as she finished off what little remained in my bottle of Jack and lit a cigar.

After she was gone, Little Bosco Obama the Third asked, “Gam’pa, what was mommy talking about i.e. ‘that here-to-fore mentioned loony-tune crap?’”

 “Well, imaginary grandson,” I said as he climbed on my knee, “Your mother, being a certified imbecile, has difficulty grasping complex concepts like learning to chew with her mouth closed or finding her ass with both hands, but to answer your question, in this world there are complex problems that cannot be resolved with simple solutions.”

“Elucidate please and with example.”

“Very well,” I reply. “Many of our present problems are the result of not addressing the problem as it emerged. Let us start with gun-control. This country, since its inception has permitted its citizens to own guns. As many as they want and mostly any type they wanted. The idea was to make sure the people could defend themselves should the government become evil and try to enslave them.”

“Seems like a reasonable concept,” Bosco Obama the Third said.

“I agree. However, since that document was written our armament technology has progressed in leaps and bounds. Back then it took about a half hour to load and fire a rifle and an actual discharge occurred in at best, three out of five attempts. Plenty of time for cooler heads to prevail. Today, we can wipe out an entire civilization in milliseconds with a device smaller than a suitcase. And unfortunately there are those who would like to own one. Not to actually use it but to show their friends how cool they are by having one.”   

Bosco nodded solemnly, “I can see where this may present a problem. Have you devised a solution?”

“Need you ask?” I replied smugly.

“I suppose not. Mom always says there isn’t a blithering idiot on this planet who doesn’t think he’s smarter than everybody else.”

“So true. Almost all my blithering idiot friends think they’re genius’s. Anyway let’s first address the possible solutions. One popular idea is to make owning a firearm illegal and force everyone to turn theirs in. The premise being that with no guns there would be no murders.”

“But there were murders long before guns were invented.”

“Very true,” I reply. “Plus there are 150 millions guns in the United States and the people who own them are not going to voluntarily turn them over, which would result with the government having to use force which would result in more people buying more guns to prevent their guns from being taken which would result in tens of thousands of murders instead of the piddly 9,000 we have every year.”

“But Gam’pa, why would people insist that disarming the populous is a good idea when the obvious result would be so horrific?”

I pat the boy on the knee and say, “Because people foolishly believe that everyone thinks just like they do and since they would willingly give up any gun they owned, which they would never own in the first place, they can’t understand other people’s reluctance.”

“My, that presents quite a dilemma. Then what would be an intelligent and rational solution? And why on Earth am I asking you?”

“I’ll answer your first question first,” I reply. “Guns should only be available to citizens who are responsible and mentally sound. For example, convicted felons cannot legally own or posses a firearm. If caught with one they go to jail and rightly so. As criminals, they have proven themselves to be irresponsible and untrustworthy.

“People who have been or are being treated for a delusional disorder must NEVER be allowed to purchase a gun, PERIOD. In addition they need to be institutionalized because they present a danger to society. Giving people who cannot differentiate between the real and the illusionary medication and expecting them to follow the dosage requirements is tantamount to releasing rabid animals on city streets. They should be treated as Typhoid Mary was treated.”

“And how was she treated?” little Bosco asks.

“I’m running out of space so look it up on Wikipedia. In conclusion, anyone convicted of behavior that can result in harming another person like driving drunk, or acts of domestic violence should be banned from gun ownership as well. Believe me, you’d have a lot less incidents if those idiots had to give up their guns if convicted.

“Now,” I continued. “To answer your second question…” But I saw there was no need. I was sitting alone on the couch in an empty house staring at a static filled TV screen.       

As you know by now, (I’ve certainly mentioned it enough) the sequel to my novel Noon: The Rise to Power—with its 8 five star reviews— will be available at the end of this month. The title is Noon 2: The Resurgence. In it you will learn the reason behind Dr. Solace Mopather’s sudden personality changes and the origin of the I-Man. You will see why the enigmatic Doctor Noon is branded by the federal government as the most dangerous man on Earth.  You will be startled when as tensions between Washington and New York increase, the Scarecrows reassemble, the Colonel takes control of the police and Manhattan is evacuated.

Have no idea what the hell I’m talking about? Well then, download Noon: The Rise to Power for only $2.99 and find out. And if within 30 days you discover you don’t like it, I’ll send you your money back! (Sorry refunds apply to USA residents only) So click on the link below Give Noon: The Rise to Power a read and find out what all the excitement is about.

http://www.amazon.com/NOON-The-Rise-Power-ebook/dp/B004EBTGZG/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1344011965&sr=1-3&keywords=Zackary+Richards