The Gig

 

            “What is that?” She glanced up at the sleekest, most streamlined Locust she had ever seen. It looked like a Locust but the lines were too sleek and streamlined.

               “That is what’s going to take you out in the arena tomorrow night. It’s a Koto, based on a Locust but with some experimental tech all around. It’s a corporate showpiece, lots of Diverse Optics money backing it hoping to get some big contracts in the Federated Commonwealth if it has a good showing.” The man from the bar pointed up at the imposing BattleMech.

               Hannah nodded. “And a good showing involves it tearing me apart in the arena? That’s about the size of it?”

               The man nodded. “You get paid to put up a decent show, but make sure that the star of the match is the Koto.”

               Hannah shrugged “What’s the point if everything is staged? I thought the object was to win, to beat the odds?”

               “The object is to play the odds. There’s so much money riding on certain outcomes, it’s only natural that there should be a little influence as to the results. The results are what’s important, and that everyone can go to sleep at night looking like it was an honest fight. It’s about appearances, everything on the Game World is about appearances. That’s what matters. Think of it as more theatre than competition.”

               They continued on to the next slot in the ‘Mech bay, which housed a Wolfhound. “That’s your ride. Bigger and tougher than the Koto so you get to play the giant getting taken down by the agile attacker. Shouldn’t be too hard. You’ve got lots of armor to take a beating, just make sure the fall is good.”

               “What’s in it for me?” Hannah asked. Her dreams were to be a Solaris warrior, and taking a dive in her first fight didn’t seem like it was the path to glory.

               “You mean besides a paycheck? Look, this kind of work isn’t pretty, but it pays. You don’t rock the boat, do as you’re told, and you get a nice paycheck to make it worthwhile. This isn’t the holovids, sweetheart. It’s not your ticket to fame and glory as the next champ of the game world, it’s your ticket to next month’s rent. Any ideas you’ve got about victory and glory, stow ‘em. This isn’t the gig for that.”

               She nodded. She didn’t know why she nodded. Everything in her said this was a bad idea. This wasn’t real ‘Mech piloting, this was play acting and she was just a cog in the machine. But every time she thought about turning back, she thought about another day, week, month, or year of tending bar in a little hole-in-the-wall. That wasn’t why she came to Solaris. And it wasn’t how her story was going to end.

Like what you're reading? Want to see how the adventure unfolds for Hannah? Head over to my Ko-fi page and lend your support.

The Hook

 

                    Here is the hook for the first story that's burst into my head in quite a while. There's a lot still rattling around in my head, and the crazy streets of Solaris are a good place to let loose creative MechWarrior energy. If you like what you read, consider heading over to my Ko-Fi Page and lending your support.

Black Hills District

Solaris City

Solaris VII

12 April, 3057

                

                Hannah wiped down the top of the bar as she glanced out the front window, watching the rain pelt the streets in a stereotypical night on Solaris VII.

               “I think it’s just the two love-birds in the bathroom. I’m ducking out for a smoke,” Tristan, the owner of the bar said. She never knew why he went outside to smoke, the air was equally dingy both inside and outside of the run-of-the-mill sports bar on the outskirts of the Black Hills district. It didn’t matter, he was the boss.

               The bar was empty, and Hannah had managed to get it mostly clean since it had emptied out. The tri-vid screens were all showing dull replays of the night’s fights and the city was getting ready to reboot for the next day. The fights were over for the moment, the patrons had all gone home to either continue their fun or sleep off their woes. All except for the two love birds who had made a not-so secret escape to the bathroom for some extracurricular activities.

               Hannah shoved her hands in her pockets. It had been a decent night, a solid mix of D and C-bills in tips meant she would be able to cover the rent that her landlord was annoyingly demanding. That would cover her basics for another month. Call it three weeks to be safe. She could get by on food at the job, and that basic hand to mouth existence never ceased to invade her thoughts as she tried to sleep in the early mornings.

               How had her dream come to this? Sure, she had come to Solaris knowing that not many fighters made the big-time, but it had been eighteen months since she had come to the game world with aspirations of making it big, and now she found herself tending bar in a hole-in-the-wall place to make ends meet. She had served in the AFFC as a MechWarrior, she had made the cut, and now her dream was reduced to this?

               Her reverie was shattered as the two love birds stumbled out of the bathroom, holding each other up in a clumsy way, and making their way toward the front of the bar. “Sorry about the mess. Our tip should cover it,” the man said to her as he coaxed his companion towards the exit.

               Unfortunately, they had paid their tab in advance, and she would be left to clean up whatever mess the guy was referring to. There was a time where she had thought cleaning ‘Mech components was the lowest of the low, but the game world had humbled her to a point she could not have envisioned when she grounded a year and a half ago.

               She was about to steady herself for whatever horror awaited her in the bathroom when a man entered the room and sat down at the bar. “You guys still open?”

               She nodded. “As long as you’re paying.”

               The man ordered a bourbon neat, and it took Hannah no time at all to pour two fingers of the well bourbon into a glass and make her way over to the newcomer. She didn’t recognize the man, but that didn’t mean much in this part of town. The bar had a few regulars, but it was mostly fly-by-night clientele that seldom made an impression. This man was non-descript, wearing a casual suit that could have made him anything from an accountant to a bookie.

               “You Hannah Knowles?”

               She paused. That was out of the ordinary. How did this guy know her? “Could be. What do you need her for?”

               “I need a body to fill a cockpit, and my usual routes are turned up dry. Somebody dropped me your name, said you had some experience, and you were working down here waiting for a paying gig to turn up.”

               She waited for the catch. There was always a catch. She had assumed that ‘Mech piloting slots were a dime a dozen on the prime game world of the Inner Sphere, but she had quickly been disabused of that notion. Lives were cheap and ‘Mech slots were expensive, and without a ‘Mech you needed some kind of angle. She had just never found that angle. “What’s the catch?”

               The man downed a swig of his drink. “No catch, it’s just a one-time gig. Nothing fancy, just filling space on a fight card. Filling the right space for the right price.”

               So that was it. He didn’t need a MechWarrior, he needed a pilot to play a specific part, and that most likely meant a fixed fight. This wasn’t a fight, it was more of an acting job. Play the part, do as you were told, and don’t rock the boat. She had heard the play a hundred times before. She had turned it down a hundred times before. But as she thought of the prospect of cleaning up whatever mess awaited her in the bathroom, something changed. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was desperation. Whatever it was, this time was going to be different.

               “I’m listening.”

               The man nodded and scratched a few lines on a napkin. “We can talk details then. It isn’t pretty, but it’s a job. I’ll see you then.”

Ko-Fi

             The first thing I've done is to set up a Ko-fi page. I'm not selling anything or putting anything that I'm going to write or create behind a paywall, it's just a tangible way to measure support and see if people find any value in what I'm doing and creating. There are lots of talented artists and creators out there that I support and I think it's time I acknowledged myself as a creator as well. If the the things I create have value to people, they will pass that on. If they don't, no harm is done.

                It's also a sign that I take myself seriously, and that is as important as anything else. This is fun for me, but it's also serious and I need to devote myself to that and let it happen. I need to start respecting myself more as a creator and as someone with something of value to share. This helps me a little bit toward that accountability.

My Ko-fi can be reached Here

Creating again

             I'm going to start seriously setting time aside to create stuff again. It's a decision that I think will improve my life in a variety of ways. I want to get back to being the happy creator of fun stories that I was before all this trouble hit. It's going to be slow at first, I'm sure. But I want to reclaim that creative energy that used to drive me and make me happy. I hope that people will enjoy the content along the way. I'm going to have something to start with here shortly, so I hope you all will follow along on my journey!

Speaking truth to the lies of Blaine 'Complain' Pardoe

 

               Once again, chronic complainer Blaine Pardoe is out with another smear piece on me in which he lies and tries to get everyone to empathize with how hard it is to be an old white man in America. I mean, just ask him. When you’re an aging white boomer, people say mean things about you to your friends online, and the only thing you can do about it is hire a private detective to stalk and smear that person in order to sell your reboot of the Turner Diaries. What is our country coming to?!

               In his latest attempt at a hatchet job, Blaine continues to spin the false narrative that I tried to get his books “delisted” with his publisher. This is blatantly false. At no time have I, or anyone else to my knowledge, advocated for the removal or censorship of Mr. Pardoe’s books. To do so would cut a vast swatch out of the BattleTech canon for absolutely no reason. I don’t want to get rid of Mr. Pardoe’s past work, and I have never advocated for that to Catalyst Games or anyone else.

               In fact, prior to his hiring of a creeper squad to doxx me on the internet, I did not even advocate for discontinuing his participation in contributing to the BattleTech line. All I wanted was for him to actually answer for and explain his vile views and keep them out of BattleTech. But of course, anyone who says a cross word to Mr. Pardoe is promptly blocked. After that, he sends his “legion of fans” (as he calls them) out to give those people grief, employing all manner of alt-right skullduggery in an effort to harass and smear such people into silence.

               Mr. Pardoe continues to abuse his position and fame to punch down at anyone who dares question his problematic worldview, which continues to get more bizarre by the day. He is spiraling into the morass of right wing hate that encompasses anti-democratic principles, racist undertones and beliefs, misogynistic language, and transphobic tropes.

               The only one trying to “silence” anyone is him. Upon hearing that I said a mean thing about him to one of his friends, he engaged in an operation to uncover my personal details and information in an attempt to spread misinformation about me and discredit me in the public view. Furthermore, he knew that he had the advantage that wealth and power afford him in our legal system, so he filed a bogus restraining order complaint against me. For those of you who do not know how this works, all Blaine had to do was go to his local courthouse and claim I said something mean about him. In order to fight this, my only option would be to retain a lawyer (at a cost of thousands of dollars) and travel two states away to appear in court in less than two weeks to contest this claim. Unable to do that, I had to work within my means to defend myself as Mr. Pardoe continued to attack.

               In addition to his filing for a PFA for me saying a mean thing about him, he furthermore retained a law firm to serve me with cease-and-desist notices about saying anything negative about Mr. Pardoe. In effect, he was threatening to sue me for saying mean things about him on the internet, knowing that he has money to spend on lawyers and wagering that I do not. In the civil court system, it doesn’t matter so much who is right and wrong, it matters who has the money to continue the fight longer.

               During this period, a “process server”, who may or may not have been aligned with the private detectives that he had already set upon me to question my friends and associates, forced their way into my home wearing tactical gear in an attempt to seem like he was some kind of actual law enforcement officer, serving me with papers, demanding that I sign them and release all manner of personal information to him and continually threatening me with “prison time”. Thankfully, I was able to think straight and overcome these strong-arm tactics and get this person to leave by threatening to call actual law enforcement regarding their improper behavior.

               At this point, I realized that I had no choice but to spend money that I didn’t have to protect myself from unlawful imprisonment and ruin. It had gotten so bad that I had to hire a lawyer that I couldn’t afford just to make sure that I was doing everything properly and not risk summary judgment against me in a court two states away. Finally, with the help of an attorney, I was able to negotiate a settlement whereby I did not contest Mr. Pardoe’s request for a PFA (As I have no desire to meet him or contact him personally by any means anyway) and he would cease his baseless attempts to bury me financially in legal fees with his silly cease and desist orders.

               Thankfully this ended the period of litigious harassment, but it has not ended Mr. Pardoe’s schemes to besmirch my reputation at every chance he gets, in order to sell more copies of his Turner Diaries reboot trash novel. He pumps out occasional hit-pieces whining about how hard it is for him to live in a world where he is threatened and fearful, when in reality, he is the one who has set fearful practices in motion against me, all in the name of getting me to be quiet. He constantly threatens me with claims that “law enforcement” is watching me, which, if you know the state of law enforcement in this country, is a scary thing in and of itself. He wants me to be quiet and wants you to buy his books to support his state of largesse, living the life of a conspiracy theorist as our democracy smolders around us.

               Pardoe plays the victim, but I am the one who has been stalked by private detectives, had a “process server” impersonating law enforcement barge into my home in an attempt to intimidate me, and been threatened with financial ruin and even imprisonment through abuse of the legal system. Do not believe his lies. Just say no to complain Pardoe!