Daydream Notes

By 2030 Canada was going to decide what would replace the CP-140 long range Anti-Submarine Warfare [ASW] aircraft. The DND  planned a competition to "assess needs and products", but because America has been complaining to the PM about Canada being shit at natsec, the logical move was to buy some American shit to hopefully shut them up. In an almost singularly odd move, the baksheesh to America was to buy Boeing P-8s, the 737 based ASW aircraft. This move was objected to by everybody Like the premiers of the two biggest provinces asked for a competition, the standing committee on defense unanimously asked for a competition, the Canadian arms industry has been apoplectic to be cut out of not only a major purchase, but a major purchase where Canada is in fact quite technologically capable at, ASW warfare. Which, naturally, the P-8 doesn't use There's also the CP-140 Aurora (Canuk Orion), which is just finishing up a $400 million dollar upgrade. This was to kee...

I'm not quite sure when I realised this, but it has dawned on me that a lot of people do not understand why militaries exist. Perhaps this is part of what happens when you stop teaching civics in school, or the increasing alienation of the post-industrial world from the military sphere. In Canada, at least, I feel part of the story is being in America's cultural shadow. American culture, I think, sees the military as an essential part of its self-identity. While any debate might circle around its use and its size, the existence of a military is taken as granted. This uncritical acceptance means that most Canadians don't really have a jumping off point for discussing why Canada – or any nation – needs a military. So, I thought I'd write a basic explainer as to 'why a military.' While as a Canadian I'm going to be often using Canada as an example, I think the basic framework I'm going to lay out here will work for any nation, since the basic rationales for...

Chapter Fourteen Jason is back in LA, in what seems to be early morning. The Las Vegas pols hand Jason and Ruth over to the LA pols and scram. As they are taken inside, Jason is trying to think about what he can say to the police general that does not sound like a lie or insanity. Jason and Felix meet. Felix is a well dressed, nice as in friendly looking dude in his mid 50s with grey hair and expensive looking glasses. Felix puts Ruth aside for now and lets Jason into his office suite, which surprises Jason in its luxury. Felix says that it doesn't show up in photos, but guesses Jason is a Six. This is pretty thunderous to Jason, who asks if Felix is also a Six; Felix grinning holds up seven fingers. Chapter Fifteen We swap perspectives to Felix, who is feeling pretty smug. When surprised to be dealing with a Six, the lie that Felix is a Seven somehow always works. In the relation of power, this is necessary, as anybody not a Six's equal is an inferior, an ...

  Chapter 12 We're with whatever police unit has been methodically searching the entire apartment complex in Las Vegas. Despite apparently being able to detect a male fitting Jason's profile, either this is another vague sensor or the boots on the ground never got that info. They've searched every apartment except two by now. One is owned by a Ruth Gomen, and the other by an Allen Mufi. Naturally they pick Mufi's. And ha, this group of police was ringing the bell to get people to let them in. If you were assuming they were once again, a bunch of combine soldiers doing breech-bang-clear thirty or so times, I don't blame you. This does explain how the police were so quiet as to not be heard by Jason, I suppose. This time, the police corporal in front tries Mufi's door before ringing, and finds it unlocked. The police sneak in with flashlights, and find everything dark and quiet, with the debris of a party lying around. quote: [The police corpora...

Jason finds Ruth smoking a cigarette in the living room, lit only by the lights of urban night outside. (Oh, apparently cigarettes are *rationed*, not illegal (because they give you cancer) and so of course the black market provides extra cigs, and Ruth in fact has a lung-shaped ashtray. She asks Jason if she loved Monica Buff. Jason says yes, qualifying it by saying there are many kinds of love. Ruth tells a story of a bunny rabbit a childhood friend once owned. Raised with cats, it always wanted to bring the cats back to a little nest the rabbit made out of cat fur. Cats being cats did not do this. Then one day it decided to play tag (which it always played with the childhood friend and the cats) with a German Shepard that was with another friend. The dog not knowing the rules (or who this strange rabbit was) bit and held the rabbit by its hindquarters, until people got him off. After that, the rabbit was terrified of dogs, but still kept trying to be a cat, because it...

We're back with General Felix, and it's difficult to tell what time it is. Either this is a continuation of the phone call we left off on, or this is the second call Felix has made to McNulty. McNulty has just told the General that Jason has just destroyed his last tracker dot. Felix is convinced now that Jason is someone deeply sinister who must be apprehended. His evidence is the total lack of police records on Jason. McNulty thinks Jason split Los Vegas the instant he found the tracker dot; General Felix says no; he's betting Jason is still there. He also orders McNulty who is most def home, high, and ready for bed to take a pill and return to HQ. As McNulty hangs up, Felix is irritated by McNulty's drug use. (Once again, quite likely perfectly legal.) Alys (who is reading McNulty's police file) says Felix should consider that maybe Jason is broadly who he says he is. She points out skill-and-appearance wise at least, his story fits what Kathy has t...

So Jason and Ruth were fucking, and Jason is amazed by how big her apartment is, the dog breeder man she married must have (or had) serious cash. Ruth smokes cigarettes, which is very very expensive, and also the only vice that is explicitly described as illegal. Jason is actually censoring his own thoughts as to how old Ruth looks, changing "prune face" to "weathered". I dunno, I think as far as showbiz goes, Dick knows of what he writes here. Hollywood wrote off Natalie Wood past 35 FFS Ahem. Anyway, Jason asks if Ruth remembers Monica Buff. Ruth does, as she was her sister-in-law for six years. She sounds like a catch: mentally ill with what sounds like schizophrenia, rarely washes, can go for days at a time saying literally nothing, would steal from anybody (like Ruth) if the opportunity arose. Naturally Jason had a "brief but intense affair with her" She was 19, he was 37. She spent all her days shoplifting so she could feed students (I...

Jason is deciding what his next move should be. He really wants to hedge against further police activity, and is considering hiding in the jungle or remote South Pacific islands. He then tallies his resources: some money, is handsome, has Charisma, and 42 years as a six. He also has his collected experiences. He decides an apartment would be nice for now; but he can't put his own name on anything, as landlords are required to update the police on residences. So, somebody else that has an apartment, like a woman he seduces. After rolling it through his head a bit, he gets a quibble (apparently these are software piloted, so like a johnny cab) and directs it to fly to reno, to a specific hi-tone club he knows. He calls it up, and charms the matre'd by remembering the man's name. It all goes wrong, though, as he gives his name and the Matre'd says "try booking us in two weeks." Once again, denied, he grinds his teeth and sends "sheets of pain...

A man in a luxurious quibble sits in the parking lot atop the police HQ. He reads the above-fold headlines, then carefully places the newspaper on the back seat. He's General Felix Buckman. He's a police general. The novel sketches the command structure (above Felix are Grand Marshall, and above that a mysterious Director) but the impression the book gives is that Buckman is the head of all natpol in at least Los Angeles if not California. He's coming in to start his day when the day shift is just ending. He's mid fifties, known by all, concerned for his subordinates well-being. He walks through the office of now empty and clear desks for agents, and notices one desk still messy: this is McNulty's desk. To Buckman, McNulty is an enthusiastic dummy; a necessary kind that must be tolerated. Buckman starts reading what he's working on; apparently there is a Jason Taverner, and he doesn't exist. His assistant, Herb Maime, meets his boss as he reads...

The guy immediately ahead of Jason evidently went to a shit forger, as he's immediately grabbed and thrown into a police quibble. But, Kathy does good work, as they pass inspection. The men attempt to give him grief about his tracker dot on his natpol card being scraped off, but he just says "I don't know what an electric dot is" and they let him pass. Kathy was lurking in the darkness. She pops out to say "see, I did good work". Jason realizes she's done it again; by proving the cards are good, Jason now owes her one, and has lost his status as Kathy's victim. Trapped again, Jason and Kathy head back to Kathy's shit apartment, while she tells him about her pet turtle (kept at the good apartment.) But somebody's waiting back at Kathy's: Mr. McNulty, her handler. He gets off Kathy's shitty couch and extends a hand to Jason; he reaches to shake it and McNulty corrects him: no, I'm not offering to shake your hand, I w...

Kathy and Jason are holding hands as they walk down the street. Kathy is talking about love and auras; Jason is numb to the world. She eventually tunes in to his non-replies being non replies, but Jason is at a distance now, constructing his own psychological models. He's concluded that Kathy is a solipsistic narcissist who's chief skill is manipulation, and any attempts at communication will just prompt a deflection or some other defense reaction. Her sheer hostility to any logic was the castle moat. She asks if he feels like catching a captian kirk. He's like sure, whatev. She asks if he wants to return to her place and screw like minks. This pegs his desire to get the fuck away from Kathy, consequences be dammed. A conversation about honestly quickly leads to Jason saying he thinks Kathy should be in a mental hospital and he wants nothing more than to get away from her. And so he walks away, into the crowd. Wondering if he's just doomed himself, Jaso...

Kathy and Jason are in Kathy's small single room apartment. Jason dislikes the small space and Kathy's screwdrivers made from orange juice and cheap gin and soon enough, absurdly, picks up that Kathy has two apartments and this one is the shit one, and resents that as well. To complete the bad tinder date feel Jason notices a copy of Remembrances of Things Past by Proust on Kathy's nightstand, and yes, I only know that book as a Monty Python reference. She's not read it very far, and Jason admits he only knows it as his show did a dramatic recreation of a scene one time. Jason then notices Kathy has a Cheerful Charlie, which is some kind of talking robot doll. He starts talking to it and just when he's about to turn it off it says "hey, I know how you can get your name, game, and fame back! Go talk to your girlfriend." When Jason asks who that is, the Charlie says "Heather Hart." (Oh, no wonder I was thinking of Mary Hart earlier; J...

Jason and the hotel clerk (pencil mustache, slightly effeminate, telepathic) are in the clerk's quibble, driving to Watts. [Note: I'm not sure of a quibble is distinct from a skyfly, as right now the clerk is driving but quibbles also might be able to fly. I'm picturing an old Checker Marathon.) Because of the clerk's telepathy, he functionally has access to Jason's thoughts just like we do and comments on them. An elderly black man is crossing the street, and the clerk comments nowadays black people are like whooping cranes, rare and protected by extensive laws. So, fun story: apparently the civil rights struggle ended with African-Americans getting what they wanted: equal protection under the law, etc. The price they paid for this was genocide, with a forced sterilization program and the right to only have one child per couple. With the later police state, this has resulted in all [surviving] black people actually *retaining* all their old fashioned ...

 Jason wakes up. He is not in the hospital. He's in a fleabag hotel. The marks of the jellyfish are gone. Hanging in the closet is his silk suit, which improbably has that gigantic wad of cash he was flashing earlier. Understandably confused and on the brink of panic, Jason dresses and unsteadily shuffels to the lobby and its phone, as hotels as nasty as this don't have phones in their rooms. Using the payphone he calls his agent and his attorney, but neither have heard of Jason Taverner and blow him off as a crank. Jason checks a discarded LA Times, and the date printed is literally the next day - according to the date, the events of chapter one happened the night before. Jason's agent made a brief appearance in it. Looking through the paper, he can't find any of the ads or notices featuring him, his regular appearance at a fancy club, or a mention of his TV show. Now on the verge of freaking out, only Jason's Six status keeps him working. He decides...

Jason Taverner is at the top of his game. He's a famous singer with his own, mega-succsessful TV show. That's because he's a Six. It's not explained at this juncture, but he and his girlfriend/special guest that night Heather Locklear are both people who got themselves genetically modified - Stage six modification? They just finished Dick's TV show, and now have to run a gauntlet with police to get to Dick's Rolls-Royce skyflyer. Things are maybe not the best between Heather and Jason. They are a celebrity couple professionally but also a couple outside of that, and Heather is sounding burnt out. She hates People, especially her fans, and wants to give up being a celebrity, marry Jason, have Jason's kids, etc. Though this could just be burnout; she also thinks flying to the secluded house they have in Zurich is stupid. This surprises Dick, as the house was chosen especially so they could get away from People. (She does not look like Heather Lo...