Survivanoia, second edition

Baroness Von Smith

Description

Set five minutes from now in Los Angeles, this darkly humored and bizarrely optimistic satire centers on the Survivanoia Corporation–Purveyors of the Post-Apocalypse. The company creates and distributes items like the Sofa Coffin, Constant War Gear, and Bird Flu Vaccine to a world that thinks it needs them. Nine narratives intertwine, revealing the struggle of one woman to make things right: When it comes to light that Survivanoia has not only created the dreaded Flower Flu, but is withholding the cure for it, Baroness Dacianna Von Worthington decides to make things right, by taking over the company. Joining the Baroness are the commonplace eccentrics inhabiting this modern life including: Dr. Encludsmo Stuckhowsen, a scientist living under a giant sign that says "Put Cheese on Stuff;" Eddie Bloodworth, a twenty-something suing his mother for not aborting him; and Jackson Blake, a beach bum slowly transforming into his once-famous television character, a hired vigilante killer. Can this cast of not-quite-nutters help the Baroness steer Survivanoia to higher ground? Or will all the World be consumed by the Flower Flu...and jogging suits that recycle your sweat so you can shower while you run?

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 18 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780998188133
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

SURVIVANOIA
Second Edition
Baroness Von Smith
SURVIVANOIA by Baroness Von Smith

Copyright 2011 and 2018, Baroness Von Smith,

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover by Jason Helmer

Chapters six and seven originally appeared on the website Once Written as the short story “The Comic Who Couldn’t Laugh”

Second Edition
Published by Burning Giraffe Books
www.BurningGiraffeBooks.com
Table of Contents
Introduction To The Second Edition
Second Introduction To The Second Edition
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgements (Second and First Editions)
Acknowledgments (First Edition, 2011)
About the Author
Also By The Author
The Accidental Despot
for Charles, Hawkeye, and Joe
Introduction To The Second Edition
The ability to update her fiction is the privilege of the modern author.
It is also her curse.
B.V.S.

W.N.Y.
August 2018
Second Introduction To The Second Edition
I started writing this book in the late ’90s. I intended it to be set, say, next Tuesday. But next Tuesday in the ’90s is not today’s next Tuesday.
Survivanoia was started before smartphones and Google; when slam poetry was nascent; when it was Minesweeper everyone played not Minecraft; before Al Gore invented the Internet. Should all these things be updated?
I decided no. I decided this when, at the gym, I caught the first hour of The Fifth Element . The film, while carrying the mark of the decade in which it was made, holds up as being set in the future. I believe Survivanoia does as well. I appreciate the gentle irony of this sort of “futuristic nostalgia.” I think Dacianna Von Worthington would, too.

B.V.S.

W.N.Y.
August 2018
SURVIVANOIA I
The Inventor and The Instigator (Friends)
Chapter 1
E ncludsmo Stuckhowsen had a landlord who spied on him. Though knowledge of this fact in no way affected his routine, he fully anticipated that one morning he would be hauled away for the crime of doing nothing by a handful of imminently practical-looking men. It never occurred to Doctor Stuckhowsen that the spying landlord might instead lead to his emancipation, self-reclamation, even perhaps that ultimate indulgence: his Americanization. The Doctor lacked the audacity to conceive these things, just as the knowledge of his spy failed to en- or outrage him, lead him to set traps, or alert the authorities.
Doctor Stuckhowsen remained certain in the knowledge of his spy, though he had no tangible evidence. Occasionally he’d peer at his leftovers, examine his ice cream, certain there had been more last night. Or perhaps a book lay askew on the coffee table that The Doctor felt certain had been aligned when he’d left.
A spying landlord wasn’t a foreign situation to Doctor Stuckhowsen, a foreigner himself to these free United States. But it did seem an odd thing to him, given that he rented a condemned shack beneath the freeway overpass. He lived under the section of highway where the 110 and 105 freeways converged and in front of an impossibly enormous billboard that said: Put Cheese on Stuff! The billboard towered thirty stories above him, the legs of it blocking The Doctor’s view from his rear windows.
That someone would rent such a place seemed unlikely only to those who didn’t grasp the severity of the housing situation in Los Angeles and/or were unaware that Dr. Stuckhowsen’s roots lay in an obscure Eastern European country whose inhabitants cared not who was in charge but only that the bombing stopped. Once a person fully comprehended these two contributing factors and their ramifications, it became perfectly logical for this little scientist to hand over twice the monthly payment of a midsized sedan (which he did not have) to live in a boarded-up shack under the freeway.
The Good Doctor didn’t care where he lived anyway. He dedicated his waking hours to research. He tended no garden, harbored no pet, dated no woman. He’d never bothered to pry the 2x4s off the windows, never swept the grime from the stairs.
He had come to America speaking almost no English but was extraordinarily good at math. He graduated from UCLA with three separate but related doctoral degrees, only slightly improved English, and exactly one friend. Something—his lacking language skills, perhaps—saw him still unemployed a year after graduation, living off a modest lump-sum payment the school had given him in exchange for rights to a patent. A less ardent man would have felt exploited.
Most of Doctor Stuckhowsen’s American encounters had been neutral. People tripped over his first name and occasionally asked if he was related to some composer. Mostly when they asked him this they looked ready to beat him to a pulp, which made him happy to tell them that he was not. Seldom was he in public, anyway. He did most of his laundry in the kitchen sink, acquired much of his furniture from the curb, and usually cut his own hair.
He shopped sporadically, when he remembered that he needed food. He’d wander through the market, fill a red carry-cart with canned fish, potatoes, cabbage. In the same strip plaza as the market was a thrift store, where he bought black pants and tweed jackets. One Saturday he’d found a stash of aprons. Not white—blue-striped, longer than standard, with a center divided patch pocket: The Gardena Butcher Shop had closed . He bought all seven of the aprons then stopped at the dollar shop for elbow-length rubber gloves. Yellow. Dr. Stuckhowsen didn’t own a lab coat.
There was a single thing he splurged on: a restaurant which he frequented. Romanian. Not his homeland but similar foodstuffs: organ meats, overripe cheese, ruby wines, and black vodka. Twice a week The Doctor walked there, a mile each way. He walked with a purposeful, pronounced swing, like a skiing monkey with too-short trousers and white socks, clutching an ever-present umbrella despite his Los Angeles address. He ate by himself, chatted with the proprietors in their native tongue, and read Russian science journals off the Internet from his laptop. Occasionally, Emil the Hungarian stopped in and they played chess. But they were equally skilled and usually stalemated. The Doctor always left a considerable tip.
It never occurred to Encludsmo Stuckhowsen to be frustrated, dissatisfied, or sad. When he grew tired of a project, he put it aside for a time, taking up another in its stead. He never concerned himself with whether a thing offered a market; he researched for research’s sake.
One day he received a notice from his bank—overdrawn. Dr. Stuckhowsen wasn’t certain what this meant. He gathered his umbrella, strode the mile to the restaurant. The girl who stood behind the counter was the daughter of the proprietor. The proprietor spoke to her in Romanian but she responded, always, in English, which inadvertently made The Doctor feel stupid, made him feel obligated to attempt English.
“Oh, the usual?”
“Naw, naw, please, the telephonic device may I use please? Here call, not a lengthy distance.”
“The phone? Sure, Doctor.”
He called a number scribbled on his hand, the number of the only true friend he’d made in college.
“Please is Mister Tyson there?”
“Encludsmo?”
Silence.
“Encludsmo, it’s Annie! Antoinette.”
“Oh! ‘Allo, Ah-knee.”
Fond laughter. “I’ll get Ty for you.”
Tyson arrived on the phone; they talked briefly. “Get yourself a meal while you’re waiting. I’ll pay. I’ll pay!” He hung up.
The Good Doctor did indeed get himself a meal: thick black sausages in a wine-based gravy, slightly sweet, roasted beets and potatoes, and a soft bread with a crisp, sweetish crust. He was mopping the last of the gravy with the bread when a familiar voice spoke his mother tongue.
—My friend why haven’t you called me?
Encludsmo smiled as he turned and stood. Behind him, Tyson wore the same earth tones as he had in grad school, and the same Timberland boots, and his unruly chestnut hair still fell just over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. The old friends hugged.
“Odd to hear my language,” Encludsmo said in English.
—You didn’t answer my question.
The sound of his native tongue soothed him and he responded in kind. —Just busy, he replied. —We’re all busy.
Tyson insisted on paying Encludsmo’s tab and purchased a bottle of Romanian wine as well. He then led them to his silver Camry.
—Antoinette misses you.
—And I her! And especially her cooking. And how is your little girl?
—Not so little. Seven now. In school and growing like a weed!
—Seven! Seems impossible. Oh, turn here. And here.
—Here? There’s no road.
—It’s dirt, but it’s okay. I made this road, had to blast it out myself when I first moved in.
“Good Lord, man! You live here?”
Encludsmo blinked at Tyson. He examined his crooked, boarded up abode, which looked bleaker than usual in the sharp glare of Tyson’s headlights, then blinked at Tyson again.
—Sure. The roof does not leak. No one bothers me.
Tyson gestured to the towering billboard. —Do you?
Encludsmo glanced at the sign, sighed heavily, shaking his head.
—American cheeses.
He got out of the car, charging toward his front door as always, while Tyson gingerly picked his way through the lawn, a lengthy, brown fire hazard that had long ago consumed the walkway.
Encludsmo fussed in the doorway—three locks, to protect the research—while Tyson glanced along either side of the house. He pointed to stylized, spray-painted letters, big and bright against the dirty white aluminum siding. “Taggers.”
Encludsmo shrugged.
Inside,