Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  “They’re pulling back. We’re going to have to switch to the twenty-four-pound howitzer.” He snickered, and whispered, “Good for up to fifteen hundred yards.” After getting a field range with his binoculars, also simulated, he said, “Load the shells!”

  She pretended to load the shell.

  “The shell weighs over twenty pounds. You might want to put on your Wonder Woman belt first,” he said.

  She stood up as tall as she could on her knees, and fastened the rope to her waist that would have to do until they got close enough to the enemy to hang somebody. The twelve year old Fiona noticed how Baxter eyed her lecherously as she tightened the belt above her waist, sharpening the contours on her figure. Honestly, Fiona didn’t think Wonder Woman’s powers came from her belt. Baxter was also out of his element as regards Wonder Woman. But in the name of authenticity, some explanation had to be provided for how she was loading the heavy shell. So in the interests of keeping the story going, Baxter’s ploy wasn’t half bad.

  Belt buckled, Fiona loaded the shell, lit the fuse, and fired. Baxter fell over from the recoil, then winked at her to do the same in order to get into character better. She honestly despised everything about the Civil War, but couldn’t deny having the time of her life with Baxter, whose enthusiasm for the subject was contagious.

  “Grab the parrot rifles.” Baxter zippered his imaginary binoculars in his imaginary waist-pouch. “Time to chase down the last of those bastards on foot.”

  Fiona snatched the broom sticks, the brushes severed from their necks, and down, out of the tree-fort they climbed. Fiona was cramping up from all the stationary work, and figured Baxter was, too, explaining the sudden disinterest in cannon fire, which was more than adequate for decimating the last of the enemy.

  They stalked their prey through the “swampy foothills.” Fiona stepped around the patches of poison oak, figuring it was just as well she saw them as pools of muck and slime; it’d serve to keep her feet away from the rash-provoking leaves better than fear of the real thing.

  Once they were in range, Baxter took aim with his parrot rifle, fired, and the weapon “blew up in his face.” He screamed and wailed so convincingly, Fiona was terrified she was going to be helpless to rescue him. She leaned over his dying body and sobbed, “Don’t leave me, Baxter! Don’t leave me.” She was no longer conscious of acting, and had forgotten herself entirely.

  Seconds after ‘passing away,’ Baxter cracked an eyelid and confessed, “The cast-iron barrels of the parrot rifle hides wear and tear, so you never know when they’re going to fail on you. Here, help me pick up the pieces of my face and stitch them back together.”

  She dutifully stitched his face together for him as he wailed in agony. He helped her glue the strips of loin cloth to his face that stood in for the stitch lines, carried in her pouch for just such an occasion as Baxter getting his face blown off.

  ***

  Unlike Baxter, Baudrigard came with real props. That was much less of a strain on Fiona’s mind, which lacked the necessary holding capacity to glom on to colors and textures and the myriad details sufficient for authentic world-building. A matter over which Lucia never stopped apologizing and cursing her family genes.

  He rode alongside her in his chainmail with sword in hand, clutching the horse’s reins in his other hand. He had the steel headpiece with cowl and a knight’s insignia on his cape, showing crossed swords over a shield. Baudriguard wasn’t exactly big budget. He rented his props from an on line costume store, and he snuck the horses out the back of the stables on the farm near his home. He always had them back and the horses brushed down in time for their riders to show up after work and ride them way harder than Fiona and Baudriguard could. Somehow, Baudriguard’s make-do efforts just endeared him to Fiona all the more.

  “Stop there, ye scoundrels!” Baudriguard commanded. He had never learned to talk in period-appropriate brogue, so just stuck “ye” in everywhere to make his words sound more vintage. For Baudriguard, it was all about the skirmishes, and wielding swords and riding horses, and, on occasion, battling dragons. Middle Ages English wasn’t his thing, nor were any of the finer points of history, and he refused to let either impediment get in his way. In that sense, he was a little like Fiona, who was also busy overcoming deficits to get into character better.

  The two cyclists training for the Tour de France took it on the chin as Baudriguard and Fiona attacked them with swords. They were theatrical swords, with dulled edges, and blades that flexed just short of the elasticity displayed by rubber. Especially since they were the ones used for martial arts training because the costume shop was out of period-appropriate swords when Baudriguard needed them most.

  The cyclists defended themselves ably by holding up their arms like shields and maneuvering the bicycles way better than Fiona and Baudriguard could wield the horses. They even seemed to enjoy the off-road terrain maneuvers that favored the horses over the bikes, laughed and swatted the stinging sword tips away like killer bees, which Fiona had no doubt the cyclists had ridden through, as well.

  The king’s road cleared, it was on to jousting.

  ***

  Baudriguard and Fiona faced off in the parking lot at McDonald’s. They were cheered by the kids playing in the rumpus room attached to the fast-food wonderland. After they had spent a half hour blocking traffic and incurring the wrath of blaring horns, the manager finally marched out and offered them both money to come back nightly, as business was up. This despite the fact that missing one another with their jousting poles on the horses usually meant careening through the opened windows of the driver-and-passenger sides of cars waiting in the McDonald’s drive-through. And in one case, taking a woman’s wig clean off. They also shattered a couple car windows that weren’t exactly down at the time. They assured the drivers the owner was paying for the entertainment before riding back into formation for the next joust.

  ***

  From jousting it was on to plotting and scheming in the king’s court.

  Baudriguard and Fiona returned to the round table to debate the future of the kingdom in the king’s presence, and in full attendance of all the Knights of the Round Table, the associated parts played by Baudriguard and Fiona accordingly.

  “The farmers are complaining of high taxes, my lord!” Baudriguard said, in the role of Sir Perceval. He then ran over to the King’s chair, and, reminiscent of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, shifted into the role of the king by donning the associated helmet and regal demeanor. “Yes, yes, it’s a tragedy. Bad year for crops all around. I empathize. We shall have to find a way to ease their burdens while meeting the needs of the commonwealth.” Baudriguard didn’t really know what commonwealth meant, and neither did Fiona, and certainly neither knew if it was a period-appropriate term, but it was at the tip of his tongue when he needed it.

  As Sir Galahad, Fiona said, “Maybe if we have the knights hunt from the king’s forests to help tide them over with portions of meat.”

  “Excellent idea,” Baudriguard crowed as the king, “though make sure to save me the finer cuts of meat.” He snickered.

  As Sir Kay, Fiona said, “Sir Galahad can’t hit the broad side of a barn with his bow and arrow. Fear not for your choice cuts of meat, sire.” There was snickering all around the table as both she and Baudriguard switched hats to continue the laughter.

  ***

  Fiona, age thirteen, came ripping through the front door of her home, covered in a veil of tears. She kicked Max, the robot cat, standing dutifully at the door mewing at her, so hard that he landed in the kitchen and began to exude more pained sounds. Damn Desdemona and her determination to embrace every new invention. Max was the latest breakthrough in technology that had absolutely no place in their lives other than as a reminder to Desdemona that life existed outside Shahola, and it was divinely sentient life by comparison.

  Fiona flopped down on the sofa and reprised her crying. Desdemona peeked out from above her newspaper. “If you’re planning on
upstaging the New York Times, I’m not sure I would go with sappy sentimental emotions that have no basis in reality.”

  “What is it about boys and their one track minds? They seem to lose all imagination as they grow older. In place of joy there’s just earnest determination.”

  Desdemona folded the newspaper, tied her tongue long enough to refrain from the usual biting sarcasm. Fiona didn’t fully understand the reason for the charity. “What do you do when you bite into a spoiled slice of salami in the fridge?” Desdemona said.

  “I throw it out and look for some fresh meat.”

  “That’s right. No big emotional drama, no causing yourself permanent psychological damage just because the baloney didn’t taste the way you expected. Now if you can just carry that lesson into the rest of your life, nothing will ever hurt you ever again. At least not in some deep, crippling, never-get-over-it manner.”

  Fiona calmed before the logic. “Why are men such shits?”

  “Everyone is a shit past the age of six, only more so as the years go on. You and Lucia have already had this conversation many times over. Why do you think I never interrupted? Most people store hurts as if they were a battery. And they wait to discharge them on the first fool to come along, never once examining their reason for living: to store up hurts and pass them on. If you want to be more than that, you have to work at it.”

  “I’m not like you and mom. I’m not a world unto myself. I need other people in my life. Specifically, I need men.”

  Desdemona chewed on the ice cube from her rum and coke. For once in her life, she considered her next response. “Why don’t you devise a system whereby you can audition them, a system of traps and deadfalls, kind of like in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom? If they get past all the man-killers, you know it must be because they really love you and are truly worthy.”

  Fiona thought about it. “God, that’s brilliant. Can you help me?”

  “Absolutely. Your mother will find this passive-aggressive. So what’s say we just don’t tell her?”

  “I stopped talking to mom three years ago.”

  “Oh. Funny, she didn’t tell me.”

  “She’s probably still deciding if it’s the right thing to do or not.”

  They both laughed at Lucia’s expense.

  ***

  Tears filled Fiona’s eyes, making it hard to see the wires she was working with in her hands. She realized now, after these many long years in the wake of a forgotten past, what she secretly hoped for most in suitable male contenders to the throne of her heart: a good man who was quick to adventure, full of inventiveness, and would somehow rekindle those glorious days of her childhood, compensate for her weak imagination. She had been playing Desdemona’s game so long of setting and resetting traps in the Temple of Doom of her own mind for male suitors that she’d forgotten the point of the exercise.

  It didn’t help that Hartman’s old house’s wiring wasn’t color coded. She was lucky she hadn’t started the house afire. Then again, starting a fire might not be a half bad idea. One way to get help to come in a hurry.

  With a twist of the two frayed wires, she raced back to the phone to see if she could get through. A dial tone at last!

  She put a finger in the hole for the nine and spun the wheel, trying to remember from all those old TV shows if she had to wait for the wheel to get all the way back to its start position before she could dial another number.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Robin burst through the trick door to Adam and Jeannie’s room, gasped, as he beheld what .32 caliber bullets did to bodies up close.

  “Goddamn it, Manny!”

  “Get me another cup of tea, will ya? While I regroup. I'm really suffering the loss here. I've never felt as close to anybody as I felt to these two.”

  Robin snapped himself out of his shock. “Yeah, sure.”

  Inside the kitchen, Robin fought to calm himself enough to strategize his next move.

  He emptied an entire bottle of reds into a bowl. He was getting ready to use the butt of his gun to smash the tablets when he saw it. He holstered his weapon, and employed the marble mortar and pestle to pulverize the pills. Seconds later, he slipped the powder into the tea.

  “Christ, Robin,” Manny shouted from the next room, “it's just tea. Don't make a federal case out of it.”

  Back at the dining area, Robin handed him the tea. “It's tough going down, but it's herbal. Hear it's very mind expanding.”

  “Give it here. Anything for the program.”

  Manny took a sip. As Robin regarded the bodies, he reached for a couple more of the greens, downed them. He heard the Bullmastiffs barking outside.

  Five minutes later, Manny was bawling, staring at the two bodies. “What have I done?! Robin, why didn't you stop me?”

  “I tried. But you weren’t the only one suffering from a lack of adequate psychological defenses. Maybe next time.” He was sobbing himself. He slid the box of tissues across the table.

  “You have to make sure I go away the rest of my life for this. Tell them everything, you hear me!”

  “Manny, after ten years, I think you deserve a one-off. We'll add it to Hartman's head count. You'll see a counselor to make sure this genie really is back in the bottle. And we'll move on from there.” He wasn’t sure he had an ethical leg to stand on with that argument, but he was not about to go through a sex change without some stability in his life. And his long-standing friendship with Manny had held up through thick and thin when little else had.

  “I will not have any of this enabling bullshit!”

  “You certainly deserve your share. God knows, everyone else has been tapping that piggy bank.”

  Manny lost himself to his sorrow. Robin sobbed alongside him in two-part harmony.

  ***

  From inside the crawl space, Winona plied her prestidigitation on the puzzle box of a door. “Give me space to work my magic, boys.” The police surrounding her stepped back. They had room to do so as this section of hidden passageways was the widest yet. Another couple twists and turns and slips and slides, and it was done. The door snapped open.

  Sheriff Brody, in his fifties, struck Winona as a hard, uncompromising, by-the-book man. He cut an imposing figure, broad at the shoulders, thick as a piano on two legs. He charged past her. She trailed in his footsteps.

  Inside Adam and Jeannie’s suite, Brody gaped disbelievingly at the two crying detectives. “Didn't anyone tell you two about getting too attached to the victims? Death and murder is just part of life, boys. You gonna cry over it, you gonna live a short life.” Brody grabbed the cup out of Manny's hands, sniffed it. Recoiling, he said, “What evil is this?”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Hartman towered over Murray from less than two feet away. He was well within his kill-zone, Murray thought, apprehensively. Thank God he’d thought to change out of the geisha outfit; if ever there was a time to demonstrate that he was done playing the fool, this was it.

  “Go on. Test me,” Murray said. “I've been using your time away to grow as a person.”

  “You piece-of-shit excuse for a man. You let a woman lead you around on a proverbial chain because you couldn't stand upright on your own. You spineless nematode!”

  You damn hypocrite! Murray thought. As if you’re any less enabled by Winona. Clearly you haven’t mastered the ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ lesson yet.

  Hartman pushed him. “You wasted half your life in a blackout, the other half too drunk to remember blacking out. Is it safe to say you haven't spent a fully conscious, sober moment, since you left the womb!”

  Giving him another shove, he goaded, “You're the antithesis of everything I stand for! What good is bemoaning an external oppressor when you happily do this to yourself?”

  Murray collapsed on the arm of the chair upholstered in white toile fabric with a Chinese dragon motif, wiped his eyes. “God, it's so true. All of it.”

  “And you don't want to take my head off for forcing
you to face up to it?”

  “Hell, no. I want to hug you. You're the first person who gave enough of a damn to do more than enable me for the power it gave them over me.” He regarded Lorie’s body on the floor, and gave it a good kick. “The first person to even try to set me free, with nothing to gain from it themselves. You're a positive saint.”

  “I think you've graduated the Hartman school for the criminally stupid, Murray.” Hartman shook his hand. “Good for you. Now, go make me proud. Go out there and change the world.”

  “You bet your ass, sir!” Murray said. He stood and saluted.

  They both heard the sirens of police cars, arriving in force.

  “The cries of wolves.” Hartman sighed. “Hunting in a pack has its advantages when coming up against certain prey.”