The breech of the Black Hand reverberated instantaneously throughout the empire of “bought souls” after Faik Besos hit the key pleading absolution. Better than “Google :- oh ¡! Black Hand please forgive me the group is aware and tracks you” he might as well have written “dearest black hand i am sorry, please kill me,” for at the instant of his posting, the minions of empire within and without the broadcast arena of Google, knew he was fair game - death warrant or no, his end would be amply rewarded.
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Leslei apprehended her position as “sacrificial lamb,” and understood, she was not - that she would be supported by every resource available to the group. The emergence of a known predicate for the evils that surrounded humanity only made her position marginally more dangerous. So facing ‘certain death’ in service of humanity, Leslei elected to tryst in the company of that handsome ass with the sunglasses, Pierre. “Hey, what’s crackin’ homeboy? I never properly expressed by gratitude for your enthusiastic skin of 'my teeth' rescue, à la ‘Pamela,’ what say you and I take a topless drive to the Riviera for a weekend in St Tropez?”
“I’m in; I have keys to a pied-à-terre with multiple ingresses and egresses; you know everything you’ve said for the past month has been recorded; you are ‘blood in the water.’ Pierre was nothing, if not amusing.
"Mais bien sûr, quel genre de plaisir est-ce de jouer avec des crétins, s'ils ne peuvent pas vous voir rire d'eux. Viens me chercher dans environ une heure?"
"Comme tu veux ma dame"
(“But of course, what kind of fun is it to play with morons, if they can't see you laughing at them. Come get me in about an hour?"
"As you want my lady”)
Leslei decided to take greater pains with the picnic lunch than apparel, the perverse child who needed no rescue in reaction formation still wore the antique race from the chateau; ‘you may as well flaunt poverty if it's you’, her art instinct intact. Pierre arrived in an exhumed Monte Carlo its top down, Leslei prepped for a Vitamin D soak, eschewing Isadora Duncan conformity had shed the tapestry in favor of her own notion of 'top down'.’
Pierre was grooving on the free thinker his charge turned out to be; he was also enough of an historian to caution Leslei to tuck her Isadora Duncan-esque shawl well into the Alfa’s cockpit. The roller coaster of post pandemic regulations created a large contingent of scofflaws throughout the world, so their odds of making it to the coast were better than average; nor as it happened were they two the only couple in the south of France with the same topless idea.
Heading east from Marseilles due south from the Parc Naturel Régional du Verdon, they found themselves in the company of 2 other Alfa Romeos comprised of kindred spirits on the coast road to St Tropez. Leslei decided to have some fun and scribbled “St Tropez” in bold letters on a torn cardboard flap flashing it to the others with enthusiastic reply posts on similar picnic cardboard scraps. One half hour down the road, what had been 3 had become six; 15 minutes later there were 9, though only 7 were flag ship ‘Alfas’ - nearing the outskirts of St. Tropez, the caravan numbered eighteen sports cars, 18 drivers and 18 topless laughing women - paradise in any other world than the pandemic pre-extinction painting these people - intrepid revelers all were posing for, for at the first roundabout from the thoroughfare there were twice that number: 36 coups full of topless laughing women swirling in a Hieronymus Bosch vortex of synchronicity not to be soon forgotten - if memories were to be a part of the bargain.
Three times around the roundabout, and Pierre yanked the wheel hard right, mindless of their close cohort with whom they’d traveled some 100 kilometers in wheeled harmony and slammed his powered steed up twisting roads and past nestled gates until he passed through a motorized gate just finishing one arc cycle of its slow two arc beat to closure as they pulled to a stop underneath an ancient Wisteria flowering all but the tiny canvas shadow within which they had halted their hour and 1/2 trek through one fantasyland of the ‘end days’.
Leslei stumbled from her car seat naked, save her bikini bottoms to cold cock an unprepared Pierre across his jaw hard enough to seat him on the Wisteria carpet, and so began a weekend of frolic and saturnalian debauchery in the once sacrosanct domain of the ruling elite, now just a buffer zone between one world and the next.
“Da’ fuck did you do that for?” the rising Pierre requested with a good deal more respect on his way up than he had had on his way down.
“I have gotten precious little pleasure in these past months and for some fuck to interrupt that joy at its pitch is an actionable offense - I acted.” Leslei had gathered her tapestry from the cockpit and was schlepping the oversized picnic basket up the marble steps to the villa’s obvious entranceway before Pierre could gather his wits enough to run up the steps and open the locked door; finding himself cheek-to-jowl with the same diminutive dame that moments earlier had knocked him on his ass, he now asking her if he could help carry the supplies she had brought.
“It’s all about timing Pierre, you just caught me at a ‘good time’,” she remarked dropping the picnic basket on his foot. Leslei found a long entryway empire table and placed her tapestry lengthwise across it as though she had just returned it from the cleaners and proceeded to the back patio leaving Pierre the oblique aspect of a skylight which highlighted his perplexity and her absence. ‘The rich really do know how to live’, she thought to herself shedding her bikini bottoms and slipping into the eternity pool embedded in a shallow patio overlooking the Golf de St Tropez.
“Though neither of you have said as much, I deduce you are squiring me at the behest of one Lammele Dama, am I correct? Let me put it differently, if you are not here at the direction of Lammele Dama, I suggest you get the ‘flock’ out of here before I work out more frustration on your too handsome face.” The sprightly 47 year old corkscrewed her naked body out of the pool to a seated position pinioning his knees in a gentle embrace and looking back over her shoulder trying to decide if she saw terror or temptation on his ‘too handsome face’.
Pierre slowly unbuckled his Yves St Laurent buckle and unbuttoned his bonafide Levis Strauss denims pushing them down to the obstruction of her embraced arms; kicking his Gucci loafers into the pool, letting her pull the apparel down enough for him to leap out from and into the water. Their copulation was blunt and instantaneous with joy unfeigned and full; and the world too soon to follow; Beethoven’s 9th told Leslei the incoming call was from Lammele Dama; her piqued libido followed her into the call, “Hello, I’m glad to hear from you - an interesting morning;” recounting the drive and the circus, leaving out the nakedness of the French Riviera. “Any ideas how to separate the wheat from the chaff; you know the ‘3 cheeses’ are going nowhere until they have the ‘nut,’ or we are all dead?”
“Pierre is an operative who flew next to you from Marseilles to Aix; I had sent him too late to be of any help in your abduction; but he is there now for any purpose that furthers your goals: 1) try to understand Demsford Schmuck’s relationship to Plum Village and whether that pertains to the ‘nut’, 2) make contact with any member of the ‘Economic Revolution;’ I have no criteria except they will recognize you by your dedication to a free world; you will know them by their enemies - very likely the same as yours. identify and isolate, but do not engage. 3) Mordecaise may be able to learn of a leader there in the South of France; Faik Besos has imploded - the 3 cheeses are now 2, making them less dangerous, and more so. You cannot be too careful: À bientôt Amour.” So much for romantic trysts in the French Riviera thought Leslei, only to realize Pierre had procured a bamboo straw and had been blowing warm water so gently past her submerged calves during her call that she only realized the difference when he stopped - oh she thought ‘viva la tryst!’
Peering directly into the green eyes of Pierre’s bobbing head she asked, “Does the Vespa I spied on the way in come with the house?”
Blowing a perfect jet stream of tepid pool water dead center into her taut bellybutton, he replied “Oui, pourquoi, tu t'ennuies si tôt avec le paradis” - (yes why. are you bored with paradise so soon?)
“Not to pull rank on so adept a lover, but we are on a mission to save the human species, as if it would know the difference. What would you say to some dress up reconnaissance? Just because we are, doesn’t mean we have to appear in public as Hoi Polloi - correct me, but I bet you have a surplus tuxedo buried here very near shear evening wear my size?”
‘Resourceful renegade’ wouldn’t begin to describe Pierre’s fantasies about his latest conquerer; “As it happens there is just such accoutrement in the guest bedroom from a magical evening not very long ago, I believe just waiting for an encore. What are you thinking?”
“Our entrance to town was very conspicuous, and if we are being hunted as I suspect we are, we may as well lean into the game. The herd we arrived with, clearly enjoys notoriety; my thinking is that with a few quick turns through the hamlet of St. Tropez in contra-apparel there will be enough sycophants wanting to mingle with the non-conformists in their midst that by late afternoon/early evening ‘the well dressed’ and ‘the half-naked’ will no longer be sure who is who; what do you think?”
“I think you are a devious minx probably responsible for the quote ‘What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly’.”
What remained of the battle plan, as Pierre explained his thinking, was how to mine useful intelligence from such an unorthodox guerrilla strategy deep in the enemy’s stronghold. Leslei begin to appreciate Pierre for more than just another pretty face. “I am the fly in the ointment to those seeking ‘the nut’ and the honey in the hive for those in service to it: why not let the gravity of greed dictate the outcome of this skirmish?”
“How?” Pierre asked, learning to listen carefully to the diabolical turns of her twisted logic.
“What about expressing the problem in language the haute bourgeoisie and capitalists use to legitimize their exploitation; ’it takes money to make money?’ We will sell shares to ‘the nut;’ those who don’t understand the distinction will be bedazzled by the bells and whistles of a masquerade; those hunting ‘the nut’, and those in service to ‘the nut’ will be able to discern the difference and distinguish themselves from one another soon enough. We simply need to find a vantage point above the fray from which to recognize the differences.”
“Damn everything but the circus - E.E. Cummings · we passed one on our way into town; even money says if we are slow and deliberate we can lead this parade right into big top.” Pierre left the pool deck to his naked friend and returned a few minutes later with chicken thighs and evening clothes. How could she argue with logic; Leslei was already naked; all she needed was some small nutrition and to dress, and they were on their way
Her tapestry was proving to be very versatile as a garment; transforming the two from roundabout half naked rebels into landed gentry out of a 50’s movie gone terribly wrong. Pierre’s tuxedo only needed one more thing as Leslei screeched to a halt astonishing pedestrians and Pierre halfway down the hill in front of a 2nd hand clothing store behind the lines of the rich and famous where she was certain would contain just what Pierre required for his outfit to be complete. Minutes later she exited the store, top hat in hand, and it fit Pierre to a “T” - stubbing out the contraband marijuana cigarette after Leslei declined, explaining the day was still young. Pierre climbed back aboard the Vespa behind his chauffeur adorned with his new helmet and gathered madame’s shawl to his waistcoat. The two set off in search of hoards to parade west to the gaping Big Top for a night at the circus after three circuits through the narrow confines of a restless paradise throbbing from the unconventional pressing against the prosaic, one day closer to rapture with the help of Cirque du Lune
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Lammele had been avoiding the call for not having a better hand, but the breaking crest of events was rapidly overtaking the group’s position so there was nothing to lose provoking The Black Hand out into the open. He had known her simply as Mrs. Phelps - a major stockholder in Georgia-Atlantic before the pandemic, but it was virtually impossible to follow the musical chairs of the ruling elite after the 2nd Killing Wave decimated 75% of the HNWI on the planet - where the first outbreak of Covid-19 preyed on poor people of color leaving 6.25 billion humans from a population of 7 billion, the 2nd killing wave 7 years later somehow killed the affluent in almost reciprocal proportion; some said it was the wrath of god, others that it was the militancy of medical personnel having witnessed how the uber-wealthy behaved prior to and after the 1st pandemic. If Lammele remembered correctly, Lisbeth Phelps tripled her sizable fortune by leveraging everything she owned to buyout Charles Cock’s interest in Georgia-Atlantic just before the run on toilet paper after the 1st pandemic began. It was rumored that her checkered affair with Rudolph Morepier the media mogul provided her leverage to inflame that panic at will. That truth will never be known, for he took his own life after being forced to sell his media empire to Badoo.
Lisbeth Phelps disappeared soon there after, and to Lammele’s knowledge only surfaced again due to Leslei Coerktern’s extraordinary research skills: apparently there is not enough money on the planet to buy anonymity. “Lisbeth Phelps, this is Lammele Dama. We sat on the executive board together for the Metropolitan Museum of Art more than a decade ago. Do you remember me?” Nothing like poking a senior citizen’s cogency to see which way the wind blows thought Lammele waiting for her startled reply . ..
“What do you want? How did you find me?”
“Lisbeth, this is the same number you had 30 years ago during the ’Twin Trade Towers Investigation’.”
“Yes, and I haven’t used it in 20 years. You still haven’t answered my question - what do you want?”
“I want you to relinquish your interest in the nut - cease and desist · ”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you have it all; from where you stand there is nothing more to own.”
“Then why would you care whether I own one more bauble?”
“There is a chance to put the world aright, and you will not be diminished an iota for not owning it all.”
“I see you are still siding with the ’underdog;’ you learned absolutely nothing from 2001.”
“Pray tell Lisbeth, what lesson did you take from that hideous abomination of human history.”
“Power is the only thing the ‘little people’ respect.”
“Yet I feel no great respect for you, mostly pity.”
“Because you are not a small man, but ignorant enough to have pity for me.”
“My ignorance is what makes me one of the ‘little people’.”
“Is this what you called for, to mince words with a woman who could kill you with a word?”
“No, I called to help you back into the light; to help you find meaning in the midst of all your empty possessions.”
“Lammele, you’re a fucking idiot, and if you have nothing more to add, I must go now and block this number.”
“Control of the world economy is moving out of your reach, and your greed will break you more than death will end your frustrated existence. Take care of yourself Lisbeth Phelps, it might help more than any nut.”
The line went dead; Lisbeth stared into the phone; Lammele set the plan in motion.
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“Guildern, it is time to take the gloves off. I want Mordecaise to give full support to Billy Sortiz. Whatever Domhall Schmuck had worked out with the Economic Revolution for implementing, the time has come to make ‘Abundunation’ a reality.”
“Hold on pal, we are a group of 6 probate researchers, ostensibly representing the interests of 3 dead brothers, chasing an inchoate theory by a long dead computer scientist. What am I not seeing?”
“Angela, are you there?” Lammele leaned forward toward the phone, imagining it helped others to understand better.
“Of course.”
“You’ve reviewed Leslei’s research on ‘the nut’? Do you feel it’s theoretical or material fact representing a socioeconomic phenomenon underway by allies known and unknown?”
Guildern was old school and did not appreciate someone grabbing the ‘whip hand,’ especially not to hand it over to his paramour. “I hate it when you do that Lammele; I am as much feminist as the next guy, but sometimes you just go too far.”
Angela was not one to hold her tongue, “Lighten up Guildern, you know he’s right - you and I get lost in our loving cocoon here and forget the stakes are greater than any time in human history, these are not just colleagues we’re talking about, they’re our friends. There’s just not any precedent for a proper pace or timing on this and it is unlikely we will ever get ‘the ducks in a row’ enough to make an educated guess. We’re, all of us, flying on a wing and prayer. What have we got to lose, besides everything?”
“You two are preaching to the choir; but all of us are refugees from vertically integrated indoctrination, and if the tendrils run that deep with us three, what’s it gonna look like to some schmo on the front line being asked to ‘adapt and improvise’ against what is the still most formidable war mechanism ever conceived, now nearly 50% robotized? Do you smell me?”
“Yeah, you stink of reality,” for an old man, Lammele maintained a spry spiny wit. “We’re no longer discussing ‘discrete death,’ for without fundamental change, inertia is going to drive our species into the wall of extinction; at least this way we may be able to launch, à la that classic vintage film ‘Thelma & Louise’, into the Grand Canyon of eternity; I am nearly certain Master T.S. Eliot would not object to the contradiction, were we to go out with a bang rather than whimper. Guildern, you are the consummate manager; how would you effect this sea change with but a rowboat minus oars in which we find ourselves bobbing?”
Guildern could wax eloquent once started, “We’re halfway there, ‘Al Queda’ is an excellent organizational model - fluid and leaderless; the difficulty we face is making it rugged and robust and irrespective of talent · we need the old corporate dodge used when they were no longer willing to pay the freight and swapped out customer service and swapped in ‘plug and play’ - another name for ‘planned obsolescence’ or bait and switch depending on your neighborhood of origin. As I understand it there are working models in place at targeted loci for ‘Abundunation’ to manifest with enough locales having received cash infusions from the ‘mirrored money’ to begin a sufficient analyses to model for attenuation - inline adjustments will be very important once the enemy understands what has been unleashed and why.”
He continued without pause, “without an org chart, each cell will need access to the activities of every other cell’s activity regardless of their resources or location on the planet; I propose we use ‘Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet’ as a boilerplate where each cell can post on ‘Face Race’s’ Nutcracker page; we can establish symbolic logic later, but it would be best developed using the ingenuity of cells as they come one line - notes, steps, performances; any manner of symbology that remains fluid, dynamic and open to interpretation, as long as it cracks nuts.”
Angela was the first to approve; “I like it; a lot of data can piggyback in a child’s dreamscape. I’ll transcribe this meeting and encrypt it into machine language and transmit it to ‘the group.’ We’d best close now; our echo footprint is reaching comprehensible levels - go forth and multiply.”
And so Fate set off to lead Destiny.
(˚ ㄥ _˚)
20 May 2026
http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com
http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com
http://Stoanartst.blogspot.com
prohibited from AI sampling in any form
reprinted with permission; all rights reserved
∞
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