PACKERS ON THE FIRST OUT
By Brian C. Williams
Copyright 2012 Brian C. Williams
Smashwords Edition
The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of, impossible since it really does not have a cover but let us go through the legal spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I have put my hand down we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people just do not ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of BLOODWASTE BOOKS
A Bloodwaste Books book published by
System*Publishing, a division of System*Productions
Melbourne, Florida
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much so in the coincidental.
Copyright © 2012, Brian C. Williams, System*Productions. PACKERS ON THE FIRST OUT, WALL BOUND #6 and all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor Who collections….well, at least that fits me.
First Smashwords edition January, 2012
For more information on PACKERS ON THE FIRST OUT, WALL BOUND #6
the artists who contributed to this book, and PACKERS ON THE FIRST OUT, WALL BOUND please contact System*Productions at billy.was.here@gmail.com
Written/Edited by Brian C. Williams
Cover by Brian C. Williams
Author Photo by Nancy Collins
Tin Universe Logo by Vinny Bove
PACKERS ON THE FIRST OUT
I will say this upfront, the truth of what I know about Australia and its history is very little, and that very little is based on drunken conversations with an inter-dimensional brain hacker who called himself Camilleri.
I told him more than a few times his named made me hungry for Star Wars characters on a pizza but he never got the joke.
The fact is I really don’t need to know a lot to do my job. Mainly what I do need to know is: what my job is, is the employer reliable to pay me and my associates, what my going in plan is, and what my exit out plan will be.
Camilleri was full of stories with more than a few interesting points within them, least of which was that he was originally from Australia. At 18 he fell through a dimensional rip and ended up studying under a guild of brain hackers called The Pee.
It means something different there.
The Pee…
Shut up.
The Pee is a chaos group; which are composed of many races from across the dimensional span of all realities. How they got these abilities no one knows. Some have said that the Chaos Gods themselves have gifted them these abilities to operate as their agents in creation.
But no matter what the answer to their mystery is one thing’s a fact. They wear really cool chrome masks.
The thing they do is travel between dimensions hacking biological systems to throw a wrench into any states of calm that they find.
Death gets a big chuckle out of watching these guys work.
A really cool thing about Camilleri himself, he’s a pretty nice guy for a brain hacker. Not saying the rest of them are Hitler’s but he is part of a group many label as terrorists; so his niceness stands out quite a bit.
One of those nice traits of his, best of which is him always paying for drinks, but one of those nice traits is how he likes to causally hack the brains of stupid people he enjoys spending time with and adds a little intelligence.
So here I am.
Many years later, after the days of drinking with Camilleri, I find myself sitting in a coffee café in Australia as an Australia Day parade passes outside.
Australia Day is a national celebration but the day isn’t without it detractors. Though this particular Australia Day parade is unique because it’s suppose to be the most inclusive to all of the people throughout the country’s history that have made Australia what it is today.
And in how these things usual happen more people are angry about it being more inclusive and also a lot angry about it still not being inclusive enough than how many were angry about the early years of Australia Day.
That’s just a lot of angry and proof again that when dealing with history there are no win win situations.
I keep ending up back in this country in its many histories and many forms, with my favorite being an Australia in one reality were its most famous export is Fish People Fingers.
Made from the remains of fish people.
Tasty.
I’m of the mind that Camilleri hacked in some Aussie hints while in there making me one degree smarter and those hints that keep my life a little more out of my hands than it is for most other people.
Let’s get this out of the way, don’t make any mistake, I’m no genius now. One degree smarter took me from picking my ass to picking my nose.
Oh, and now I can see the left over energies that temporally surround enter-dimensional travelers. I don’t know why I can do this. The one time I meet Camilleri after those drinking days and I told him about this particular ability he responded with, “Oops.”
If you see random people with a metallic glow about them, you too might have had an encounter with my friend Camilleri. An “Oops” encounter.
Today I’m having coffee with two people I meet because of said accidently granted ability.
One is a friend, the other my soon to be wife. I work with both of them now.
One of them is from an unstable reality called The Collected. Points of reality collected by the ancient race The Twist. Mostly paradoxes and canon issues. He’s a former member of The Pee and was excelled for being the very thing they are accused of being.
My fiancé is from The Tin Universe, you might have heard of it around these parts. The place has a large hero and villain theme to it. She was working on a British cargo ship in the future when the new Pledge came into her powers. Her survival of that encounter was simply a bite of cosmic angst.
“My life can be laughable at times. But at other times I can just smile for no reason. Days like today are why I do what I do.” My names Anton
When it comes to some things most people are in similar view. For a few examples most people enjoy chips on their sandwiches. It may not be popular in America but soccer is a thousand times more popular than the N.F.L.
And most of my family likes buttermilk.
Not me.
For most people it would be better to wake up alive than dead, not counting vampires, but for others there is a walk they must do somewhere between life and death. This is the only way these people can live. And they have no choice.
These people are what Angels call Packers.
No Green Bay citizenships required.
And don’t go there with any fudge comments.
Packers are human beings who carry their futures with them through every step they take. They are the artists, the performers, the lovers, the seekers.
The dictators.
The visionaries.
And the revolutionaries.
Packers have one thing most humans don’t. They have true passion.
They also have a unique strength within them.
All three of us have been called Packers during our travels. I take it as a compliment but my two café mates today aren’t of the same mind. Then again everyone goes into things from different angles.
“Today’s a story and you should take all stories as a dig into a soul.” That’s my friend Aasif.
“I think your brain is finally cracking.”
“I dig what we do, I dig you, I dig your girl.”
“Watch the digging hippy.”
“What?”
“Don’t dig my lady. I don’t like that. I’m a jealous person.”
“Alice isn’t complaining.”
“Alice doesn’t talk.”
But she does middle finger both of us for talking as if she was here.
That’s called Meta Our Lives banter.
“Too bad you have another job tonight. One a day is plenty enough for me. I won’t get to see you before I leave for Calgary. I wanted to stay longer, wish I could, but I have a higher profile than both of you do and I’ll need to get out of the country quick after helping with this job.”
She gives him a half hearted smile filled with disdain more than anything else. Working with them together can be a challenge. Good thing they are both totally professionals when getting a job done.
“Will you be back for the wedding in July?” I asked
“I’ll do everything I can to be there. Though I’ll have a new face so expect that. This one is getting too well known.”
Alice taps her watch to Aasif. She’s a stickler for never doing a job late or early. She prides herself on doing so to make a point of how professional she is. And this job is technically hers with us along for the ride.
“A few more minutes before the parade hits the right mile marker. Enough time for another round of shots.”
Being enter-dimensional terrorists for hire is all about the coffee intake.
Coming January 31st 2012
Coming February 29th 2012
Coming March 31st 2012
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Photo by Nancy Collins
©Nancy Collians/Brian C. Williams
This vignette was written during my protest day off from the internet in support of those protesting PIPA and SOPA. It takes a lot and is very hard for me to be silent, to keep my mouth shut. So my internet silent protest against the attempted silencing of the internet in the sheep skin of fighting piracy was filled by writing. Well, writing and arguing with our apartment complex to come and fix a few things.
But you don’t want to read about any of that. I’ll just say the internet is where I’m betting my future. It’s also become a voice of the voiceless and also a megaphone of those who already had a loud scream but needed a platform for their stances; so attacking that matters to me.
And people ask how I can not support things like PIPA and SOPA when I’ve been so outspoken about piracy. I’ll give you the answer I read from another writer online, one of my favorite writers Maureen Johnson, SOPA and PIPA are, “Throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
I plan to do one themed vignette story each monthly during 2012 to be released Free for all to read. These are to one throw more stories out into the world and also to promote my current projects that I’m releasing each month, those being the short story series THE TIN UNIVERSE and CHAOS READ.
Each vignette one will be available through my Smashwords store as is all of my other releases and each will have a theme that has something to do with that month in some way.
I hope people enjoys these free stories. Each will be set in all the different universes I write within. If anyone would like see more of the characters in any of these stories or anything from any of the future vignettes let me know and I’ll either write something else with those characters and setting or hire someone else to explore them.
Thank you for reading,
Brian C. Williams
OTHER SYSTEM*PRODUCTION SITES:
UNDER THE TRAINING BOOK: Official site of Brian C. Williams
http://underthetrainingbook.blogspot.com/
CHAOS READ: Bimonthly Short Story Series
http://chaosread.blogspot.com/
TIN UNIVERSE: Bimonthly Short Story Series
http://tinuniverse.blogspot.com/
The Facebook page of Brian C. Williams
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Williams/100000358371201
Twitter feed of Brian C. Williams
https://twitter.com/hangofwednesday
Smashwords Store:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/hangbrian
Other System Productions Stores:
http://stores.lulu.com/billywas
http://www.cafepress.com/TINUNI
http://www.cafepress.com/HANGCEE