Joe Floyd

Of Aliens, Cannibals and Cowboys - Introduces protagonist, love interest, antagonist, setting, tone, and primary conflict Thad was nodding off in his PMcrusier as it moved along the sol-track at 270 Kicks. Going outside the Greenzone and seeing these jammed-together dull-drab-green CareRises always made him feel a little bit sick to the stomach and a little bit angry. All the worn-out, mean-spirited, poor human-kind: too hot to move around much, and with no idea how bad-off they really are. ‘It's fhaing 55C in the shade and hot enough to fry an egg on the back of your hand - who wouldn't be worn-out and mean puttin up with that kind of misery’ he unconsciously mouthed to no one. He would know, because he used to be one of them. When he was twelve, his ma took him to be EqualTested and he placed in the top 1/10th of 1 percent. He was accepted into the PeaceMaintenace program for crowd control. They needed Heat Cops who were 'genetically compatible with prolonged-high-thermal-endurance situations' – cops who could stand the heat, beat the hellshit out anyone who looked vaguely capable of rioting, and basically do all the dirty work for the nice people in the Greenzone. That was the last time he ever saw his ma. Today was going to be one of those days that his instructors at the academy called a "positive-community-interaction-and-peace-touching opportunity" It brought on an ironic moment as he remembered how they had spent two days listening to a short, soft-looking psycho-trainer talk about how to connect with the other person’s inner-self and feelings of inadequacy, as you were peace-touching. Carter, his first patrol partner, had translated “peace-touching” as banging heads, breaking fingers and doing whatever else it took to keep the place from exploding during the heat-riots. The Pols did not allow Heat Cops to use physical force, or carry any weapons. After all, this was ‘The enlightened fourth-age of reason’; ‘Social violence was a thing of the past’, and weapons were un-necessary. It makes you want to just fall down on the ground and die laughing he thought as he stirred himself up from the enviro-seat of his cruiser. Walking on the street outside the Green-zone without having something to slash, smash, shock or shoot with, would make for a very short career – and one less Heat Cop. Yep, one less person to breath, eat, shit, use up energ-creds, and take up space - very green. Some organ-snatchers had recently been harvesting in his zone and he needed to persuade them to move on. ********************Chapter 2****************************** Heat shimmering from the cracked and broken sidewalks made the dull-grey concrete buildings in the distance dance like a gibbeted thief. The first thing that hit him when he stepped foot outside of his cruiser onto the street, was the dense hot smell of millions of poor people: sweating, cooking, breeding and dying year after year in the same fifty cubic kilometers of ancient concrete and steel that comprised his zone. The better-off of the poor lived underground, beneath the CareRises where it was 10 degrees cooler. The rest had to live on the surface and take their chances with the heat as best they could. Just about no one outside of the Greenzone had enough energy-creds to buy any chill at all. Hell, it took all the creds that most people could scrape up just to buy enough food made from pond-scum and reclaimed sewer water to survive. He stepped out of the searing heat into the first shade he could find. He needed to move cautiously around these organ-snatchers and he needed good intel and quick. They had a reputation as really ugly-mean killers, and he had no intention of contributing to their inventory. But it didn’t have to be a big thing. He also heard that they were good businessmen and he just needed to make them understand that business would be better for them in some other zone and not in his. His methods for keeping law and order were complicated and relied heavily on elaborate and ever-shifting alliances with the local under-lords. But in the big-picture sense, his approach was extremely simple. In his zone there were 20 million hot and angry people. To survive he had learned to live and let live, unless he absolutely had to do something. If a big rock is rolling toward you, you don’t just stand there and heroically try to stop it. You get out of the way first, let it run over a few people if it needs to, and then follow behind until you get some kind of inspiration on how to stop it without getting killed. Or better yet, just let it stop rolling on its own. He was hoping that inspiration would come to him soon. Or that the organ-snatchers would run out of quality ‘organ-donors’ in his zone and just move on. He met Yurgo at a nearly abandoned CareRise in a dark stairwell far away from public view. Yurgo didn’t look healthy. He was short, rail-thin with pale skin, dark circles under his eyes, and he had no ears. He was a Zeltor addict and he ran a string of brothels to make ends meet and maintain his habit. He was the only Zeltor addict in the entire zone because of the enormous costs of the drug which was extracted from a rare substance dug out of the planet Mars and smuggled to Earth. “Need a favor Yurgo.” “Is that intended to be a request?” “Once an English teacher always an English teacher, eh Yurgo? I need a favor” “Sure. Whadaya going to pay me with, more of your crap philosophy?” “Look, Zeltor is a grade 5 substance and it’s prohibited in every zone on this planet. An addict like you could be sent to Peace-Harmony-training for rehabilitation and re-education. And who knows, you might even survive it.” “So who’s going to tell anyone, you?” “Look, it doesn’t take a friggin genius to just look at you and see you are a Zeltor addict. Both of your ears have rotted off. The point is, I don’t care what you do as long as you keep out of sight and I don’t have to hear about it.” “So, what’s the favor?” “I need some intel on the organ-snatchers who are working the zone.” “You mean little-Bob’s operation? “You know I’m not talking about Bob. Bob’s just a nuisance. And besides he doesn’t get greedy and rip out everything and leave a dead corpse behind.” “When you say ‘corpse’, you don’t need to modify it with ‘dead’, it is implicit.” At that point Thad could see that the conversation was going no-where. Apparently Yurgo was not in the mood to share the intel that he needed. He decided to try a different tactic to help move things along. *******************Chapter 3****************************** To survive in Thad’s world it was important to be consistent but never predictable. As quick as a striking cobra, Thad launched a fist aimed at Yurgo’s crotch. Reading his eyes, Yurgo side-stepped the punch. He then jumped straight up ten feet in the air like a large flea, turning summersaults as he came back down. Besides making one’s ears fall off, Zeltor also enhanced the senses and made even a tiny guy like Yurgo stronger than a gorilla. Thad had never witnessed such a feat of acrobatic skill before, especially from someone who looked as sickly as Yurgo. He hesitated for a fraction of a second and Yurgo was on top of him in a flash and had pinned him face down on the stairs, holding both of his hands by the thumbs, twisted behind his back. Yurgo didn’t kill Thad. Why would he. He figured that someone else would just take his place, and maybe that other cop would not be as easy to work with. Yurgo hopped off and Thad slowly got up on one knee, a big scrape on his chin and a chagrined look on his face. “As I was saying, the word ‘corpse would imply...” Just then Thad connected with a short jab into Yurgo’s crotch. He went down hard on the sharp stair risers. Thad had him covered with a disrupter gun that he seemed to pull out of nowhere. “Let’s not argue. Tell these nice people that I just want to meet them and work things out like the enlightened, non-violent, comrade-sojourners that we all are. You pick the meeting place, sometime around zero-zero-thirty hours. Introduce us and leave.” Wiping the retch from his mouth, Yurgo only nodded and stayed down. Thad walked out into the scorching heat without looking back. Yurgo had been able to get the drop on him and could easily have bashed his head in if he had wanted to. He didn’t want to make the same mistake again around people who were not as forgiving as Yurgo. *******************Chapter 4******************** All Heat Cops were mind-monitored 24 hours a day – everything they saw or heard or thought was up-linked to a computer at Peace Monitoring Central Control to ensure that all PM non-violence policies were strictly adhered to and that the zones were kept peaceful. On his first day on the job, Carter had taken him to an illegal sim-shop in the underground to have his mind-monitoring device reprogrammed to up-link a simulation program to the Central computer. After the sim-switch he could be anywhere out in the Zone, flogging the hell out of some creep with a thermal-truncheon, kicking someone’s balls up in their throat, whatever - but Central would only see a placid scene of Thad peace-touching an invalid or helping an elderly lady move furniture, or some other such idiotic nonsense. Officially, this thing with Yurgo had never happened. Central mind-monitoring had a recording of him teaching nonviolent-interaction-methods to a classroom of 5-year-olds and having thoughts ‘harmonious with non-violence’ and ‘compliant with PM-policies’. Back at Central no one really gave a flying-fhuh about anything that happened in his zone and generally anything that happened outside of the Green-zone. It popped into his head to go pay a visit to little Bob. Bob was in the organ-snatching business, only on a smaller scale and not as aggressively as this new operation. Bob might know something useful about these guys that could help Thad figure out a strategy. But just now he had to travel back to the Green-zone to follow up on a “peace-touching-interaction-opportunity”. He guessed that it was probably just some Level-10 rich guy beating up his girlfriend, or something like that. That kind of thing seemed to happen a lot among these fhuhin-privileged-Greenzone-types. And it turned out he was right again. *****************Chapter 5 ******************************** Thad’s cruiser pulled up to the main entrance of the Greenzone. ‘Global Equality and Global Greenness’ was written prominently in big letters on a sign displayed above the main entrance gate. You just had to pay an annual dwelling tax of 1200 Energ-Credits per individual to live in the Greenzone – which was enough script to pay the entire food bill for a family-pod of 100 for a year. That kept most people out. And for anyone else from outside who had the money, they still weren’t allowed in with any police record, even a misdemeanor. Due to the myriads of discretionarily enforced statutes, everyone else outside the greenzone was, by default, an offender and therefore excluded from getting in. The game was rigged from start to finish Thad mused as he approached the virtual gate. His cruiser was recognized and passed through without being crushed by a shaped-thermal-blast wave. He glanced around as he passed by the seemingly endless rows of lush green bushes and manicured trees lining the sides of the transportation ribbon. It never failed to give him a brief moment of cognitive dissonance when he came inside the Greenzone after spending a day on the outside. What a fruhgin contrast he thought - all this cleanness, coolness and greenness compared with the dreary, dried-out, hottern-hell shabbiness outside. Thad did a quick check on the background of who-ever this person was that he was paying a visit to. His name was Aver Helstrom. He held a level-10 rating and was an active player in Roman Sim-Fantasy. Ho-lee-shit, that didn’t sound good. He was probably playing gladiator with some of his sim-friends and then something bad happened. Thad would have to handle this situation very carefully. He couldn’t so much as touch a level-10 without losing his job and being tossed out of the Greenzone on his ear. And he had far too many enemies outside the zone for any hope of longevity. He arrived at the lobby entrance where Aver Helstrom lived. “Pal-a-tial” was the first word that came to his mind as Thad passed through the lobby and walked up to the attendant at the reception desk. “Aver Helstrom.” Thad started to say, but the attendant jumped up from her chair and ran around the desk to grab Thad’s hand before he could finish his question. “He’s been expecting you for more than an hour! Please come this way now and here is your sim-role” said the attendant handing Thad a sim-chip to hang on his neck. Thad realized that the attendant had mistaken him for a sim-actor or something. This was a very lucky break Thad thought as he followed the attendant into Helstrom’s palace. A very lucky break indeed. *****************Chapter 6 ******************************** Thad hadn't made it this far as a Heat Cop without developing a sixth sense for how to avoid trouble. He smiled as he walked through the cool, climate-controlled lobby of the sprawling compound. He had a feeling that he wouldn't need any finesse with these guys today. The attendant who met him in the lobby appeared to be in her mid-twenties. That is, until you got a closer look at her. They did a good job on her skin, face and body, but her eyes gave it away. She was probably pushing seventy. "I was expecting you to be here over an hour ago and he will be very angry by now". Landra was her name and she moved briskly to the elevator, obviously expecting him to follow right on her heels. Thad lived by his gut instincts. Sometimes his gut needed a little recalibration, but it had kept him alive so far and he never questioned it. This time his gut told him to walk in and start slapping these rich assholes around. The doci on this address had come up with two recent calls on Aver Helstrom. Normally these types could get away with just about anything, including murder. Reading between the lines, Thad sensed that this time Aver had slipped up - he had chosen the wrong chickadee to beat up on, a young woman from his own politico class named Vera. Thad normally made it his policy to not get involved with the affairs of these rich, connected types. He usually just went through the motions and got in and out as fast he could. But this time was different. His gut told him there was an opportunity here. Maybe a chance to shit-slap some rich guys around with complete impunity. But maybe more. You never know until you size the situation up. Landra took Thad through a climate-lock door into a scene straight out of ancient Rome. A coliseum full of drunken screaming spectators, the arena floor piled with heaps of dead gladiators, wrecked chariots and dead horses. Thad calmly stepped over a pile of dead bodies, avoiding a pool of slippery blood, and walked up to a very large blond man dressed as a Roman gladiator who was talking to the game-controller on the coliseum floor. "Fugging technicians coming out to fix this hunk of dog shit you sold me? Never mind, here he is now". The big guy, who happened to be Helstrom, pointed a trident at Thad's chest and snarled "The controller is under those dead horses. Get over here now asshole!” Thad assumed an idiotic look on his face and shambled up to the big man. He stood there staring down at his shoes, appearing to be resigned to the verbal abuse and physical beating which he so obviously deserved from the hulking gladiator. With lighting speed Thad threw a straight right and hit the big man between the eyes, hard. Aver Helstrom was knocked backwards by the blow and landed flat on his butt. The initial look of confusion on his handsome face was replaced by contorted rage and he jumped up and lunged at Thad with his trident. During his relatively long career as a Heat Cop, Thad had seen it all. He had been shot, stabbed, electrocuted, garroted and even dropped from a ten-story high-rise. One time he made the mistake of turning his back on a shriveled-up 128-year-old woman in a wheel chair, and she had beat him with a crow bar so badly that he could barely crawl back to his cruiser. In his line of work, survival depended on anticipating what the other guy was going to do before he even knew he was going to do it. With a quick flick of his wrist Thad disarmed Aver Helstrom. He was going to enjoy shit-slapping the big rich guy, and he knew there would be no formal complaint filed, no inquiry, absolutely no repercussions. This one was on the house. *****************Chapter 7 ******************************** Aver Helstrom stopped dead in his tracks, looking bewildered and confused. No one had ever done this to him before. He was over two meters in height and 135 kilos of solid muscle. Some little guy who weighed no more than 80 kilos after a big meal had just taken away his weapon. He went completely berserk and charged at this little piece of shit who was grinning at him. Thad saw it coming last Tuesday and again side stepped the big man’s bull rush, and administered a nice tennis-backhand with his left fist. Gushing blood from his nose, Helstrom began to reconsider his approach. He circled around Thad, looking for an opening for his next attack. Thad was still grinning and looking un-worried. This enflamed the big man even more and he lunged again, swinging a big right at his opponent’s head. Thad ducked under the punch and connected with a big right upper-cut that knocked the huge gladiator backwards. Helstrom staggered for a few steps and then fell down hard. Thad crouched down, his face almost touching Hestrom’s face. “You Ok big fella? Help you up?” Then he effortlessly pulled the woozy gladiator back up on his feet. “Let’s go find Vera” Thad said with a big silly grin on his face as if they were two old friends who had decided on the spur of the moment to go out for a drink together. The big man began wobbling toward the coliseum vomitorium. Thad was walking next to him, cracking jokes about the relationships of ancient Roman sheep herders with their sheep and chuckling at Helstrom’s obvious discomfort. Helstrom’s head began to clear, and he sensed that Thad was not paying as close attention as he should to such a dangerous man as himself. Helstrom suddenly turned and whipped his massive right elbow toward Thad’s left temple. Anticipating that the big man still had some fight left in him, Thad was ready. *****************Chapter 8 ******************************** Thad easily ducked under Helstrom’s flying elbow. Using the middle finger of his right hand, he punched the big man in the base of his throat. It was the only vulnerable part of his body not covered by gladiator armor. His eyes bugged out. Gagging, he grabbed his throat and keeled over like a bag full of wet guano. “OK Helstrom, all done with this tough-guy shit?” Thad said with a silly grin still on his face. Helstrom nodded yes as he desperately gasped for breath and stumbled back up to his feet. They moved out of the coliseum, but remained inside the Ancient-Rome Sim-Game. Walking by stalls selling bread, wine and roasted meats, Sim-venders energetically shouted out the virtues of their merchandise with the exaggerated facial expressions and gesticulations of computer-generated game-crap. “Look, I didn’t do anything to her if that’s what you’re here to investigate. This is just a sim-game, all make believe.” Helstrom emphatically stated. “You are going to regret this intrusion when your department hears about it.” Thad looked unconvinced by his explanation and threat, and Helstrom looked nervous. “So, what’s the plot for this sim-game? Gladiator single handedly smashes a bunch of chariots, kills everyone, and then beats up his girlfriend?” Helstrom seethed in silence. They turned a corner and walked into a crowded slave market. Thad scanned an elevated platform where a slave auctioneer was screaming out bids to the usual collection of sim-generated non-descript fat merchants and vapid looking noblemen. Slaves of every color, sex and age were on display. Then he saw her, kneeling at the center of the platform, chained to a post. Naked and looking frightened, she was an absolute knock-out. *****************Chapter 9 ******************************** Thad’s experience with the opposite sex could be described as sketchy at best. While you couldn’t exactly call him a woman hater, he hadn’t met a female that he wanted to spend any time with other than his own mother. Some of the tarts that he had picked out in the flesh-markets in the zone were pretty enough, even if they were overly modified with extra-large breasts. But they were only looking for a ticket out of the zone and they weren’t his type. He had never been attracted to any of the bitch-snobs from the Greenzone that he had met while on duty. Sure, a few of them had come on to him because he was a cop, and they had used him and he had used them. But he generally found them all to be intolerably stupid. Besides, the Greenzone chicks were out of his league so what did it matter anyway. Just then Vera looked up and met Thad’s gaze. It almost felt like one of Helstrom’s elbow slams had just connected with his head. She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense – he had seen plenty of prettier women. But she had a certain something that he had never seen in any other woman, young or old, and that something hit him like a thermal hammer compacting twenty tons of shit for recycling. Contrasted with his smug and brutal treatment of Helstrom minutes earlier, he became respectful and gentle with the young woman as he unchained her from the pillar. ‘Are you alright miss?’ She looked up at him. Her left eye had a big shiner which was just starting to turn multi shades of dark purple. A trickle of blood had dried and crusted under her nostrils. He thought she looked absolutely beautiful. ‘I’ll be alright. I just had a fall. An accident. Thanks for coming anyway.’ Thad could read her expressions and he knew that she was scared, maybe too scared to ask for help. ‘Glad you are ok. I still need to take you back to the office to fill out some forms. Just standard protocol’. This was a boldfaced lie and both she and Helstrom knew it, and Thad knew they knew it. He shot a look at Helstrom which said: “if you say anything I’ll beat the fucking shit out of you until you beg for mercy”. Helstrom turned around and walked off the sim-set without saying anything. They walked slowly back to the dressing rooms where she could get some clothes to wear. Unlike his usual style around pretty women, Thad attempted no small talk. He wanted the cosmic clock of time to slow down and stop. He wanted to savor every second that she walked beside him - naked, bruised and gorgeous. He wanted to memorize every movement she made so that he could replay it over and over in his mind later. He knew it was a bad idea to get personally involved in this mess and it was unlikely to turn out well. But for the first time in his brief brutish existence, he was smitten.

1. Write your story statement: Of Aliens, Cannibals and Cowboys by Joseph Floyd Science Fiction (PROTAGONST INTRO AND SETTING) Thad is a cop in 23rd century Earth who tries to maintain order in a society on the verge of chaos because of global warming. A veteran of the heat-riots resulting from a failed science experiment that inadvertently raised global temperatures, he has become cynical and avoids meaningful romantic relationships. He is investigating a powerful crime syndicate called the ‘Organization’ which has been killing people for their body parts in his zone, when he is diverted to the wealthy Greenzone to respond to a domestic-violence call (INCITING INCIDENT). He meets a beautiful young woman there named Vera who has been slapped around by her rich boy-friend. Thad rescues Vera and they become romantically involved . While investigating the Organization, he makes an enemy of Spax, it’s leader, when he refuses to be bribed (STAKES AND FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT). He is captured by Spax who orders his execution, but Thad escapes with the help of a young attractive woman named Lethan. When Thad returns to his apartment he is arrested for the murder of Vera’s boyfriend and discovers that she has framed him (SECOND MAJOR PLOT POINT). He escapes with the help of his friend Urgo and they travel to the forbidden zone for mutants. They are forced to go to a mining penal-colony on Venus but they escape Venus in a stolen spaceship and begin a series of adventures while traveling through the solar system: they rescue Lethan after a meteorite shower on Mercury; they are captured by a cannibal cult on Mars; they are involved in a shoot-out between cowboys and mercenaries on the Jupiter moon Europa; they are captured by pirates and taken to the Jupiter moon Ganymede and forced into a fight between competing pirates; they find an ancient burial site for aliens on Saturn’s moon Titan and must fight off a giant robot spider; and they are intercepted by space marines and must fight to survive. Thad decides to return to Earth to clear himself of murder charges and he becomes embroiled in a power struggle between Spax and Vera for control of the Organization. Spax takes Lethan hostage and Thad is forced to choose which woman he will betray and kill: Vera or Lethan. (CLIFF-HANGER: WHO WILL HE CHOOSE? WHICH WOMAN DOES HE LOVE?). 2. In 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. A crime syndicate, the Organization represents the worst of all large corporations: cold and impersonal; focused on the bottom line at the expense of all else; ruthless and predatory. Spax, as leader of the Organization, embodies all of this. Spax has been CEO of the Organization ever since he poisoned the previous CEO and took control. Whenever the Organization failed to meet the production targets for the quarter, he liked to use the ancient Roman military practice of decimation: he lined up all of his lieutenants and kill every tenth one. Anyone opposing him was immediately crushed. 3. Consider a breakout title: Of Aliens, Cannibals and Cowboys Aliens, Cannibals, Cowboys and Pirates HEAT COP FUTURE-HEAT HEAT-RIOTS HEAT-RIOT COP I FALL TO PIECES FALL TO PIECES CRAZY CRAZY, I’M CRAZY I’M CRAZY BOILING HOT BOILING HOT WORLD BOILING HEAT HEAT AND BETRAYAL 4. Develop two smart comparables for your novel. The Saturn Series by C. Chase Harwood The Saturn Series is a swashbuckling, often humorous, adventure story where the main character is a cop who has fled the advance of an Earth dominated by AI, to Saturn where he and his new comrades are now fugitives who must beg, borrow, and steal their way across Saturn's moon colonies to survive and a final show-down. Of Aliens, Cannibals and Cowboys has similar plot elements: swashbuckling, humorous adventure story; cop and his new comrades being pursued across the entire solar system by a criminal syndicate; and a final confrontation and show-down. Gallow Glass by S. J. Moran A fast-paced adventure, Jack Van Der Veerden must fight to survive in space as he seeks his fortune on a mining ship crewed by mercenaries and misfits. Thad, like Jack, is a space traveler who is thrown into crazy and dangerous situations that he must think and fight his way out of. 5. Write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Of Aliens, Cannibals and Cowboys by Joseph Floyd Framed for murder by the woman he has fallen in love with and marked for death by a crime syndicate that has been killing for body parts, a hard-boiled cop escapes from earth and encounters cannibals, cowboys, pirates, gangsters and an alien robot spider as he fights to clear his name and settle a score. 6. Sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction At a young age, the protagonist was given a chance to escape poverty by being trained as a Heat Cop and never saw his mother again. The over-heated slums where he works are a pressure cooker of violence ready to explode any moment and he is confronted with institutional hypocrisy from his higher-ups. All of this has made him cynical and caused him to avoid meaningful relationships. When he helps a beautiful woman named Vera who has been slapped around by her boyfriend, he has romantic feelings that he can’t repress. He hears a Patsy Cline song on an ancient juke box and it unlocks emotions that he can’t control and he falls in love with Vera but she frames him for the murder of her boyfriend. Another woman named Lethan saves his life and he becomes attracted to her. In the end he is forced to choose which of the two woman he will betray and kill: Vera, who framed him for murder and who he still loves; or Lethan, who saved his life. 7. Sketch out your setting in detail Heat shimmering from the cracked and broken sidewalks made the dull-grey concrete buildings in the distance dance like a gibbeted thief. The first thing that hit him when he stepped foot outside of his cruiser onto the street, was the dense hot smell of millions of poor people: sweating, cooking, breeding and dying year after year in the same fifty cubic kilometers of ancient concrete and steel that comprised his zone.